CTS FOR FRESHMEN 



CONCERNING 



The University of Illinois 





Book^_^ 



Facts For Freshmen 



Concerning 



The University of Illinois 



BY 



THOMAS ARKLE CLARK Dean of Men 
ARTHUR RAY WARNOCK Assistant Dean of Men 



Published by the University 

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Foreword 



The writers of this little book hope that it will be of in- 
terest and service to those who contemplate entering the Uni- 
versity, or to those who have just enrolled, in making them 
better acquainted with the history and the life of the institu- 
tion, and in giving them information for which they might 
often hestitate to ask. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Foreword page 

Historical Sketch 5 

Organization of the University 14 

The Problem of Living 16 

Choosing a Course 2s 

Literature and Arts 26 

Science 28 

Engineering 31 

Agriculture 39 

Law 42 

Library Science 43 

Music 44 

Studies and Other Things ....... 46 

The Freshman in College 54 

Class Attendance and Scholarship 61 

Organizations 64 

Fraternities . . .64 

National Fraternities . - 65 

Professional and Honorary Fraternities . . .68 

The Illinois Union 69 

Literary Societies 69 

Professional Clubs 70 

The Lincoln League ....... 71 

Cosmopolitan Club 71 

The Military Band 72 

The Glee and Mandolin Club 73 

Dramatics '73 

Athletics 74 

Religious Life 81 

The Young Men's Christian Association . . .81 

The Churches 81 

Publications 83 

The mini 83 

The Illio 84 

The Illinois Magazine 84 

The Agriculturist 85 

The Technograph 85 

The Students' Directory 86 

Class Organization 87 

The Calendar 93 

Miscellaneous Information 98 



Historical Sketch 

The University of Illinois is younger than most of the 
larger state universities, and besides the fact that it is young, 
it was slow in beginning its development. Like the other 
state universities the Illinois Industrial University, as it was at 
first called, grew out of the desire of the common people to 
furnish their children practical education as good as the 
best. 

In July, 1862, an Act was passed by Congress donating 
public lands, in the ratio of thirty thousand acres for each 
senator and representative, to the states and territories 
which would provide colleges for the teaching of agricul- 
ture and the mechanic arts. Under this Act Illinois would 
receive 480,000 acres of land valued at $600,000.00, the in- 
terest of which could be applied for educational purposes. 
The Legislature of Illinois accepted the grant in February, 
1863. The following year a committee of six, of which Pro- 
fessor Jonathan B. Turner of Jacksonville, Illinois, was per- 
haps the most influential member, was appointed by the State 
Agricultural Society to take the matter up, and to present to 
the State Legislature a plan of organization. This was done, 
and in February, 1867, a bill was passed by the Legislature 
locating the institution in Urbana. This action was taken 
in view of certain donations amounting to perhaps $200,- 
000.00, made by the Illinois Central Railroad Company, 
Champaign County, and the cities of Champaign and Urbana. 
These donations included the "Urbana and Champaign In- 
stitute .Building," a large, ill-built structure standing approxi - 
mately where the baseball diamond in Illinois Field is now lo- 
cated. In this building, which was also used partly as a 
dormitory, the entire work of the University for a few years 
was carried on. 

The government of the University was vested in a Board 
of Trustees, consisting of the Governor, the Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, and the President of the State Board 



6 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

of Agriculture, ex-off4cio members, and twenty-eight citizens 
appointed by the Governor. The chief executive, who was 
also a member of the Board, was called Regent instead 
of President, as at present. This body was soon found to 
be too unwieldy, and in 1873 a new law was passed, providing 
that the Board should consist of nine members, three from 
each grand judicial division of the State, appointed by the 
Governor. 

Women were not at the outset to be admitted, and the 
Trustees in the beginning emphasized their belief in the 
fact that the University was to be made a practical institu- 
tion by the following resolution: 

"Resolved, that we recognize it as a duty of the Board 
of Trustees to make this University preeminently a practical 
school of agriculture and the mechanic arts, not excluding 
other scientific and classical studies." 

Every student was required to spend from one to two 
hours a day in manual labor for the institution, for which a 
modest remuneration was allowed. Seventy-seven students 
were enrolled during the first term of the University, which 
began March 11, 1868. 

The first Regent, as he was then called, was Dr. John 
Milton Gregory of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Dr. Gregory 
served the University as its executive head from March 12, 
1867, a year before the institution was formally opened, un- 
til 1880. He was born July 6, 1822, at Sand Lake, New 
York. He graduated from Union College, in 1846, studied 
law from 1836 to 1848, and later, after some time spent in 
the study of theology, he entered the Baptist ministry. He 
taught in a secondary school in Michigan for a time, and 
was in 1858 elected state superintendent of public instruc- 
tion of the state of Michigan, which position he held until 
1863, when he was elected to the presidency of Kalamazoo 
College. He was a man of the highest ideals, and of the 
broadest sympathies ; he had a far-reaching vision of what 
such an institution as a State University should be, and 
should be able to accomplish ; and he endeavored to lay the 
foundations of the University deep and strong. He ex- 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 7. 

ercised the strongest personal influence upon the student body. 

During his regime a number of the instructors were ap- 
pointed who are still in the service of the University : Pro- 
fessor S. W. Shattuck, of the mathematics department ; Vice- 
President T. J. Burrill, of the department of botany; and 
Professor N. C. Ricker, of the architectural department; 
have all been connected with their respective departments 
forty years or more. Professor I. O. Baker, of the civil 
engineering department, has been (in 191 1) a member of 
that department for thirty-seven years. Professor Edward 
Snyder, without the mention of whose name no sketch of the 
University would be complete, was appointed in 1868, and 
served the University continuously until 1896. In 1899 he 
gave to the University $12,000.00 to be loaned to needy stu- 
dents. The fund is known as the Edward Snyder Loan 
Fund. Professor Snyder died in 1903. 

Women were first admitted to the University in 1870. 
The story is told that when the members of the Board of 
Trustees were deliberating over the matter in a room in 
the old dormitory, a group of boys much interested in the 
outcome were gathered in a room above listening through 
a friendly stovepipe hole to the discussion going on below. 
When the vote was finally taken, and was announced as 
favorable to the young women, an approving shout was 
heard from the gallant fellows above. The girls have ever 
since been thus kindly received. Twenty-two women reg- 
istered the first year. 

In Januaryj 1870, a mechanical shop was fitted up with 
tools and machinery, and here was begun the first shop in- 
struction given in anj^ American university. 

The same year a system of student government was 
adopted which for a time seemed to work admirably. Politics 
soon crept in, however, and perverted justice, and the system 
was in 1883 abandoned. In 1871 a bill was passed by the 
Legislature appropriating $75,000.00 for a building to cost 
no', less than $150,000.00, and providing that $75,000.00 addition- 
al be appropriated at the next meeting. University Hall was 
begun, but the Legislature did not make the expected ad- 



8 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

ditional appropriation ; and the building had to be completed 
with money taken from other University funds. A dark 
line may still be seen on the walls of this building where 
the bricks were stained from exposure during the delay ne- 
cessitated while waiting for funds. 

The first publication by the students of the University 
appeared in November, 1870. It was called the Student, 
and was published monthly. Two years following the name 
was changed to the Illini, by which name the University 
daily is still known. In 1877 the University was first given per- 
mission by the Legislature to grant degrees. Previous to 
this time graduates of specified courses had simpl}'- been given 
certificates indicating that they had satisfactorily completed 
an outlined course of study. 

In 1880 Dr. Gregory resigned his position as Regent. 
He spent the remainder of his life in Washington, D. C, 
where he died October 20, 1898. By his own special request 
he was buried on the University grounds. His last resting 
place is marked by the little square mound under the trees 
between University Hall and Wright street. 

Dr. Selim H. Peabody, formerly Professor of Physics 
and of Mechanical Engineering, on the resignation of Dr. 
Gregory was appointed Regent pro tempore. The following 
March he was made Regent. Dr. Peabody was born at Rock- 
ingham, Vermont, August 20, 1829, and prepared for college 
in the Public Latin School of Boston. He was graduated 
from the University of Vermont in 1852. In 1877 he received 
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the- same institution, 
and four years later was given the honorary degree of Doctor 
of Laws by the University of Iowa. All of his life follow- 
ing his graduation from college was spent in teaching in high 
schools and colleges, both in the east and in the west. He 
came to the University in 1878 as Professor of Physics and 
Mechanical Engineering. He was a man of wide learning. 
It is said of him that at the time of his appointment to the 
office of Regent in 1880, he could have taught successfully 
any subject offered in the curriculum of the institution. We 
had not at that time reached the age of high specialization 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 9 

that we are now in. He remained at the head of the Univer- 
sity until 1891. He died at St. Louis, Missouri, May 2(i, 1903. 

During his administration a number of events occurred 
of interest in the development of the institution. The Leg- 
islature, which had been niggardly in its appropriation of 
funds, became somewhat more generous, and made appropri- 
ations both for the maintenance of the institution and for 
the erection of buildings. The appropriation for the erec- 
tion of the present Armory was made in 1889, and for the 
north wing of the present Natural History Building in 1891. 
Professor N. C. Ricker drew the plans for both of these 
buildings. A number of departments were added to the cur- 
riculum, including Mining Engineering, Pedagogy, and Rhet- 
oric and Oratory, and an effort was made to gain a strong- 
er control of student affairs. The lll'ini was reorganized, 
the time required to be put in by students in military drill 
was reduced, and fraternities and other secret societies were 
banished. A rule was passed that no student should enter 
the University until he had pledged himself not to join a 
fraternity, and that no student should be graduated until he 
had certified that he had not belonged to any fraternity while 
in the University. The rule was strenuous, but was later 
repealed. 

The University had experienced a good deal of annoy- 
ance and found that considerable misunderstanding had arisen 
from the name "Illinois Industrial University," many people 
of the State having the idea that the University was a sort 
of penal institution or a reform school. The Trustees, there- 
fore, petitioned the Legislature to change the name to 
"University of Illinois." This petition was acted on favor- 
ably, and brought great rejoicing to the friends of the Uni- 
versity. The State Laboratory of Natural History was this 
same year brought to the University. 

By an Act passed in 1887 Trustees of the University 
were henceforth to be elected by popular vote. This change 
made it possible for women to be members of the Board. 
The change in the manner of election helped materially to 
bring the institution before the people of the State, many 



10 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

of whom had previously known little or nothing of its char- 
acter or existence. 

On the resignation of Regent Peabody in June, 1891, 
the Board of Trustees appointed Professor T. J. Burrill as 
Acting Regent, and he served during an inter-regnum of 
three years. Up to this time the number of students in at- 
tendance at the University had but once reached five hun- 
dred. It was known almost exclusively, if known at all, as 
an engineering and an agricultural institution, though in ag- 
riculture it had few students, and had done little work. The 
Legislature became more generous ; appropriations for new 
buildings were received; more money for operating expenses 
was secured; graduate work was undertaken; and the whole 
institution seemed to have an awakening. The attendance 
increased ; student . organizations were aroused, the ban 
was taken off fraternities ; and the- relations between students 
and Faculty became more agreeable than they had been for 
years. Students were allowed greater liberty of action, and 
responded with greater sanity of conduct. A women's gym- 
nasium was established; the Engineering Building was 
erected ; and the office of Registrar was created. Every- 
where a better spirit grew up. 

In April, 1894, Dr. Andrew Sloan Draper, then Super- 
intendent of the Cleveland, Ohio, schools was elected head 
of the institution, the title being changed from Regent to 
President. He entered upon the duties of his office Sep- 
tember, 1894. 

Andrew Sloan Draper, the third President of the Uni- 
versity, was born June 21, 1848, at Westford, New York. 
He was reared and educated in the state of New York, 
and for many years formed a large part of the politi- 
cal and educational life of that state. He was a graduate 
of the Albany Academy, and received his training for the 
profession of law in the law school of Union College, 
graduating in 1871. He has received the honorary degree 
of Doctor of Laws from several of the leading universities 
of the country. For nearly a dozen years after his gradua- 
tion in law, he practiced his profession. He was a member of 



EACTS FOR FRESHMEN II 

the New York state legislature in 1881, judge of the United 
States Court of Alabama Claims in 1884 to 1886, and State 
Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1886 to 1892. 
The two years previous to his coming to the University he 
had been superintendent of the public schools of Cleveland, 
Ohio. President Draper had had wide experience with men, 
in politics and in educational work; he had shown his ability 
as an organizer; and he put this quality to good use in his 
management of University affairs. He established the fact 
that the University to be successfully operated needed more 
buildings, and more money, and he got both. He enlarged 
the facilities for work in all the colleges ; through his influ- 
ence the College of Law was organized; the present School 
of Library Science was brought to the University; a School 
of Music was established ; and an affiliation was made with 
the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago. He 
showed the keenest personal interest in students and stu- 
dent activities. He was a rigid and successful disciplinarian, 
but he at the same time stood for what furnished students 
physical and social enjoyment. He enlarged the social life 
of the students; he encouraged athletics; he cultivated a 
friendly relationship between students and Faculty; and he 
brought about harmony where there had frequently been dis- 
sension. 

President Draper managed in a large degree to put the 
University right before the people of the State, who in many 
cases had looked upon it with disfavor, or with indifference. It 
was by his skill in 1897, when the treasurer of the institution 
defalcated, carrying with him nearly a half million dollars 
of University funds, that the University was brought through 
its difficulties with a minimum of loss and friction, and the 
State was immediately lead to fulfill its legal obligation to 
the Federal Government by assuming the regular payment of 
the interest on the endowment funds which had been stolen. 
Under his administration the Engineering Experiment Sta- 
tion was established; eleven important buildings were erected 
at a cost of $835,000.00; the amount appropriated for general 
running expenses of the institution was increased three- 



12 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

fold; and the attendance grew from 750 to 3,500. 
Among the best services which he did to the University- 
was to organize its regulations, and to put them into written 
form. 

Dr. Draper resigned his position as President in 1904 
to become the Commissioner of Education of the State of 
New York, a position which he still holds. 

Dr. Edmund Janes James, the fourth President of the 
University, assumed charge November 5, 1904. President 
James was born May 24, 1855, at Jacksonville, Illinois. 
He prepared for college in the Model Department of 
the Illinois State Normal School, Normal. He was 

later a student of Northwestern University, and of 
Harvard College, and received his Doctor's Degree 
from the University of Halle. He taught in the public high 
school of Evanston, Illinois, and* in the high school depart- 
ment of the Illinois State Normal School, Normal; and 
from 1883 to 1896 he was Professor of Public Administra- 
tion in the' University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the 
Wharton School of Finance and Economy. From 1896 to 
1902 he was Professor of Public Administration and Director 
of the University Extension Division of the University of 
Chicago. He was President of Northwestern University 
from February, 1902 to September, 1904, when he resigned 
to become President of the University of Illinois. 

President James is the first native of the state of 
Illinois to be elected President of one of the three great uni- 
versities of the state — Northwestern, Chicago, and Illinois. 
He has presided over two of these, and was for six years a 
professor in the third. He is thus a sucker by birth, educa- 
tion and career, — a genuine product of the corn belt itself, 
of which fact he is naturally proud. 

So far during President James' administration the Uni- 
versity has made material advances, especially along scholar- 
ship lines. Many new buildings, also, have been added, and 
the appropriations for operating expenses have been gener- 
ously enlarged at each biennium. Salaries of men of pro- 
fessorial rank have been increased fifty per cent., and for 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 1 3 

this reason it has been possible materially to strengthen the 
teaching force. Distinguished scholars have been brought 
to the University from all over the world, and emphasis has 
been laid upon the importance of the University's going 
into research and graduate work if it is to take its place 
among the great universities of the country. 

The Graduate School has become an actuality, and the 
Legislature and the people of the State have come to see 
its importance, and to approve definite appropriations for its 
support. A separate Graduate School faculty has been or- 
ganized, and graduate instruction has been developed and 
strengthened. There have been established a School of Edu- 
cation, the State Geological Survey, and a School of Rail- 
way Engineering and Administration. During recent years, 
also, the work of the College of Literature and Arts has 
reached its highest standard of efficiency. 

In May, 1911, a law was passed providing for a one 
mill tax on all the assessed property of the State for the 
support of the University. Previously the University had 
had a somewhat uncertain source of support. From the 
general government it is receiving annually $112,000.00; from 
students' fees, exclusive of the Chicago departments, about 
$95,000.00; and from the interest on the endowment $32,- 
000.00. For all other sums it was dependent upon the 
biennial appropriations of the General Assembly of the State, 
which was indefinite and uncertain. The one mill tax puts 
the regular support of the University upon a safer founda- 
tion, and assures a regular income. No other event in the 
history of the institution is more important than the pas- 
sage of this bill. 



The Organization of the University 

For the purpose of doing business the University is di- 
vided into schools and colleges, each with its separate body 
of instructors, or faculty. Each school is presided over by 
a Director, and each college by a Dean. At Urbana there are 
the colleges of Literature and Arts, Science, Engineering, 
Agriculture, and Law, and the Schools of Music and of 
Library Science. 

The deans of the colleges, together with the President, 
the Vice-President, the Dean of Men, and the Dean of 
Women make up the Council of Administration. The Sen- 
ate is composed of professors, • or those acting as heads 
of departments, even though they may at that time be be- 
low the rank of professor. Those people who give instruc- 
tion in a school or college constitute its faculty. 

The Council of Administration, which is entirely an ex- 
ecutive body, meets every Tuesday at four o'clock. It has 
final action on all student disciplinary matters. Cases of 
discipline are first considered by a committee appointed by 
the Council, of which the Dean of Men is chairman in the 
case of men, and the Dean of Women in the case of women. 
The findings of these committees are reported to the Council 
of Administration for its final action. The Council consid- 
ers all irregular matters concerned with the waiving or the 
enforcement of general University rules. It is for the stu- 
dent a sort of court of last appeals. 

The Senate, which corresponds to the general faculty 
in most colleges, meets on the first Monday of October, 
December, February, April, and June. It concerns itself 
entirely with legislative matters of a general character, or 
those which affect the whole institution. Its regulations 
have to do with such educational matters as affect all of 
the colleges, or the general University policy. It passes on 
such matters as entrance requirements, the requirements for 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 1 5 

graduation, the general regulation of athletics, and so oa 
It has nothing to do with the enforcement of University- 
laws. 

The faculties of the respective schools and colleges 
meet at times best suited to each individual organiza- 
tion. Some meet at a regular time each week, and others 
only at the call of the Dean or the Director. Each faculty 
exercises legislative functions with regard to educational 
matters pertaining to its own work. It determines, for ex- 
ample, the amotmt and the character of work which students 
may take, the prerequisites for courses, the conditions on 
which students may proceed, and so on. The final authority 
in executive matters lies with the Dean of the college. 

The Dean of Men is a general University officer who has 
charge of social matters and matters of conduct pertaining 
to the undergraduate men. He is chairman of the dis- 
ciplinary committee for men, and has supervision over their 
class attendance. He is concerned with the conduct, progress, 
and interests of individual students. The Dean of Women 
bears a similar relation to the undergraduate women of the 
University. 



The Problem of Living 

In the early days of the University students found the 
most attractive places to live at some distance from the 
campus, often lodging two miles or more away from the 
University grounds. Now students are crowded as thickly 
and as closely as possible about the University, no one 
living more than a few blocks from the campus, excepting 
as he may wish to find a lodging place at a lower price. All 
the college activities are near the campus, and if or!e v/ishes 
to enjoy these he must pay for the privilege. The farther 
away one goes the more removed he is from the real college 
life, and the more cheaply he can find lodging. One who 
has a reasonable amount of money furnished him need not 
consider these relatively small differences, however. 

A student coming to the University for the first time 
should not put off the selection of a lodging place until 
registration day, or he is likely to have little choice left him. 
He should choose early and thoughtfully with regard to his 
own comfort and convenience. Usually two students live 
together in one room, and this room is their home — parlor, 
study, living room, bed chamber all combined in one. It 
is desirable that it be well located, well heated, and well 
cared for. All these points should be carefully considered 
before the room is contracted for — they are much better 
adjusted before than after one has become a tenant. 

The matter of neighbors is important. It is undesirable 
for many freshmen to occupy the same lodging house; their 
habits of study are likely to be unformed, and they waste 
each others' time without knowing it. It is unwise to live 
in a house where more than half the students are freshmen. 
Congenialty and community of interest are well worth look- 
ing for; the new student is influenced materially for good or 
for evil by the men with whom he lives. 

When you make a contract for a room be sure you have 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN I7 

a definite and specific agreement, written if necessary. The 
custom in Champaign and Urbana, which for all practical 
purposes is the law, is to hold students to whatever contract 
they have made. If no definite time is set, then, whether 
he gives notice or not, the student must pay simply for 
the month on which he has entered, and may leave at any 
time. If he makes a definite agreement for a semester, or 
for the year, for instance, then he is held to this, and unless 
he can show that the landlady has broken her contract, 
must pay for the full time. Students should keep these 
points in mind; for the fact that one later finds that he can 
get a better room at a cheaper rate, or find a more agreeable 
location, or get into a fraternity, does not absolve him from 
the responsibility of his contract. Usually, however, if he 
can discover some one who is willing to take the room off his 
hands he is allowed to move. 

A list of available rooms in both cities, with description 
and prices, is ordinarily kept by the Young Men's Christian 
Association, where it may be consulted freely by students. 
The office of the Dean of Men will also be glad to furnish 
any information which may aid students in the intelligent 
selection of lodging places. As to the payment of rent 
during the Christmas and other vacations, no general cus- 
tom prevails. Some landladies make no deductions from 
the regular price; some charge but half rates for the time 
students are absent; and others make no charge at all. It 
is, therefore, all a matter of previous agreement, concerning 
which the student should be careful and definite. 

A comparison of prices will show that room rent is 
somewhat higher in Champaign than in Urbana, and some- 
what higher on Green, John, and Daniel streets in Cham- 
paign than in other parts of that city. About forty-five per- 
cent, of the students live in Urbana, and about fifty-five in 
Champaign. It is also usually true that a relatively larger 
percentage of the upper classmicn live in Champaign than 
in Urbana. This is accounted for from the fact that prac- 
tically all of the men's organizations have their houses or 
their headquarters in Champaign. 



l8 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

The sensible student will not move often. If in business 
life three moves are equal to a fire, in college life that many 
moves are generally equal to a flunk; for the man who can 
not get on with his landlady is not likely to be more success- 
ful with his instructors. Every student should select such a 
place to live as will enable him to live comfortably, and to do 
his work quietly and regularly. The work of a college course 
is a man's work, and it takes most of the student's time to do 
it well. It is sometimes difficult to do it even under the 
most comfortable and favorable conditions. 

Every student should select such a place to live as will 
enable him to live comfortably, and to do his work quietly 
and regularly. The work of a college course is a man's 
work, and it takes most of the student's time to do it well. 
It is sometimes difficult to do it even under the most comfort- 
able and favorable conditions. 

There are a great many places about the University 
where students may get meals. Most students lodge at one 
place, and get their meals at another. The boarding clubs 
and restaurants are managed in various ways. Some are 
"cooperative," some are managed by students, others are 
under private control ; but in any case the price of meals 
varies little, and one place is about as good as another. At 
some places both men and women are served, and at others 
only men are admitted. There is perhaps less unconven- 
tionality and better service at the mixed clubs than at 
others. The boarding house exclusively for men is likely 
to cause a degeneration in table manners. 

In recent years there have grown up about the campus 
a number of lunch rooms where one may get a respectable 
meal for a relatively small sum. These places serve twenty- 
one meals for a stated sum, and because they allow the great- 
est freedom as to time and regularity of attendance upon 
meals they have been extensively patronized. The service 
at these places is rapid, but usually crude. The boy who 
eats his meals with a rush is very likely to develop chronic 
indigestion, and unconventional service is pretty sure to 
encourage crude and careless manners; neither one of 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN I9 

these things the college man can afford to carry about with 
him. The fact, too, that at such places the student pays only 
for what he selects, and so is given a chance to save money 
when his hunger is easily appeased, often leads him to choose 
an ill-nourishing or badly balanced ration. The student who 
tries to save money on his regular meals is laying up for him- 
self an inheritance of indigestion, of which he will find it 
difficult or impossible to rid himself. 

All that has been said applies to the boy who has suffi- 
cient money, and whose chief problem is how to use his 
time discreetly, and how to spend his money wisely. The 
young fellow who must himself make his living, or even a 
part of it, while he carries a college course, is in a much 
more difficult situation. Hundreds of students every year 
perform the double task successfully, but the efforts of 
many result in ill health and intellectual failure. There are 
few things about which more foolish statements are made 
by the general public than concerning the advantages which are 
supposed to accrue from working one's way through college. 
Poverty is always uncomfortable, and seldom a help. To 
earn one's way in college takes time and energy which might 
usually be devoted to more profitable things. No one should 
try it who is not forced to do so. 

Any one who is to earn his living in college should not! 
begin without some money. It is better to defer entering 
college for a year or two after graduation from high school 
than to enter with no resources, and to be forced to depend 
upon picking chance jobs here and there for existence. Fees, 
books, and other supplies draw heavily upon the student's 
resources at the beginning, and he must have something with 
which to meet this heavy drain. It is sufficiently difficult to 
adjust one's self immediately to a new environment without 
adding to this the necessity at the same time of earning one's 
living. Nor is it easier, as boys often think, to earn one's 
living in college than it is to do so in other places. The 
work of a college course is supposed to take the most of 
one's leisure time, so that one who enters college should 
have at least enough money to carry him for a half year. 



20 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

and it would be wiser if he had enough for an entire year's 
expenses. 

Boys who come for the first time to country places like 
Champaign and Urbana do not at first realize how many 
men there are who are trying to earn a living, and how 
difficult it sometimes is for a new man at once to find some- 
thing to do. Students who have been in college the previous 
year have wisely picked up all the best jobs before going 
home, so that little is left for the newcomer except the 
discard. 

The skilled laborer always gets more for his services 
than the one who can do nothing more than ordinarily well. 
A student who can do no special work must take what he 
can get, and will receive for his services only the payment 
which is given the common laborer, that is commonly twenty 
cents an hour. One who has learned a trade will very readily 
find employment on Saturdays, and for his odd hours. Those 
with special talents may earn their living more easily than 
others not so endowed. People who sing, or who play a mus- 
ical instrument well, draftsmen, chauffeurs, barbers, bookkeep- 
ers, stenographers, and any with special training are much 
better fitted to help themselves than are those without such 
training. 

The boy who intends to take upon himself the burden 
of earning his living while in college should be mature — 
and by that I mean usually nineteen or twenty years of age. 
The burden is too great for the young boy to assume. He 
should have a good physique, for he will often be forced to 
keep irregular hours, either to bring up his college work, or 
to do his outside work. He will get into difficulty if he 
slights either. The boy who works for his living will have 
to give more conscious attention to his clothing than other 
fellows, because he is not likely to have a new suit often ; he 
must look neat, and yet his work is pretty sure to be hard 
on his clothing. He must keep his clothes in good condition, 
therefore, or he will soon come to have a slovenly appear- 
ance. If any man needs to learn neatness of appearance, 
and care in dress, it is the student who works for his living. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 21 

He must be resourceful and adaptable, able to fit in any- 
where, and able also to use his brain in his work. It is the 
student who first meets an unsolved condition, or satisfies 
an unsatisfied want, who makes good at earning a living. 
The number and variety of the places where a student may 
get work at the University is almost infinite, though of 
course the new student is most likely to find occupation in 
waiting table at the innumerable fraternities, clubs, and board- 
ing houses about the campus. For this service he usually 
receives his board. Every one should depend on himself 
for a job. Very few people will hire a man solely on some- 
one else's recommendation; they want to see him and size 
him up themselves. A week before college opens is a good 
time to arrive in Urbana, and the Dean of Men is a good 
man to see for initial directions ; then strike out for your- 
self, and if within two days you do not have a job it is 
your own fault. In getting a job at college it is the early 
bird that catches the caterpillar. 

The student who is earning his living is doing a double 
business, neither part of which he can afford to neglect. 
If the food supply runs out, he is put out of business, and 
if he fails at his studies, he is put out of college, so there 
you are. He makes good in both lines only by conserving 
his energies, developing concentration of mind, and culti- 
vating system in the use of his time. He can not afford to 
waste a moment. He will often have to sacrifice much, to 
keep out of many things that he would like to be a part of — 
athletics, social pleasures, college activities generally, — and 
he will not always be able to do his college work as well as 
he would like. College life is for him a compromise be- 
tween what he would like to do, and what he must do. 

Whether a student has much or little money it is a good 
thing for him to establish business relations as soon as he 
comes to Champaign or Urbana. If possible each student 
should have a definite monthly allowance due on a specific 
day, and on this he should see to it that he lives. It is 
better to have a bank account, and to pay all bills and ac- 
counts by check. Then the disagreements which frequently 



22 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

arise as to whether or not a bill has been paid will be impos- 
sible. Since students expect to live in a college town for 
four years they should not underestimate the importance 
of establishing at once a creditable reputation with the mer- 
chants with whom they are to do business. It is a good 
thing to have a regular place to trade, and to become per- 
sonally acquainted with the men with whom you spend your 
money. Don't go into debt, and don't borrow of the other 
fellows in order to do things which you can not afford. It 
is never easier to pay up out of next month's allowance than 
it has been to meet your obligations out of this month's. It 
is not the size of your allowance which causes you to get 
on easily, but the way in which you manage what you have. 






Choosing a Course 



Most people very sensibly have a feeling that education 
is for an object; that when we go to college it is in prepara- 
tion for a distinct and definite occupation or profession. 
When a young man announces to his friends in any un- 
metropolitan community that he is going to college, the first 
question he is likely to be asked is "What are you going to 
study for?" And when he goes home at Christmas time the 
first query with which he will be confronted is "What are 
you studying for?" Education, at least in the minds of the 
majority of people, is for an object; looks forward to a 
definite future; is nothing if not for practical ends, or if it 
does not help a man to earn a living. 

There are a number of high school graduates, no doubt, 
who should not go to college; those who do not care for 
books or study, those who have no intellectual outlook or 
ambitions, those who have heavy home obligations, or 
those whose ambitions are chiefly to make money quickly, 
those who have little money and less talent, and the morally 
and physically weak — all these, or the most of them, at least, 
would often be better off if they went immediately to work 
rather than to waste their own time, and the time of every one 
with whom they associate, in trying to carry a college course. 
Some must still toil with their hands, and reach success or 
failure without the training of books and why not these? 

As matters are now there are certain professions into 
which one is not likely successfully to enter without a college 
education. It is true that in the past men have often made 
a success in the ministry, in teaching, in law, in medicine, in 
scientific investigations, and in engineering without the exact 
and rigid training which college offers, and it is also true that 
men sometimes will still reach distinction in these lines of 
work without such training, but the number is growing 
gradually smaller. If one is to distinguish himself in any 



24 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

one of these lines he will do so most readily by giving himself 
the most thorough college training possible. 

The choice of a profession, or of a college course, 
should not be dependent, as it too often is, upon either 
chance or our associations. In choosing a course from the 
long list of courses which the University offers the decision 
should be left very largely to you as an individual. The 
work you are to follow you should yourself select. Your 
father and mother may express preferences, your teachers 
and friends may give advice, but after all it is you who are 
to live the life, and do the work, and succeed or fail. You 
should listen to the advice, and have regard for the prefer- 
ences, but you should not be dominated by them. 

First of all you should determine the sort of work for 
which you are best fitted. You will be helped in this self- 
analysis by studying your work in the high school, and de- 
termining from this what you have done most suc- 
cessfully. Your friends and teachers will be able to help 
you in this regard, though they may sometimes be prejudiced 
in your favor, and decide that you can do a thing well be- 
cause they desire you to do it well. If you do not enjoy 
mathematics, and if you get on with difficulty in these sub- 
jects, you are not likely to be a successful engineer; if 
literature and language do not appeal to you, and if you 
have little imagination or love of the beautiful, you should 
not elect to be either a poet or an architect; if you have 
been awkard and unsuccessful in the laboratory you should 
in all probability not make science your major subject. 

Besides studying your own fitness for a course of study, 
your choice may very well be influenced by what you like. 
If you like your work you will go at it with more energy 
and enthusiasm than if it were distasteful to you, and so you 
will be very much more likely than otherwise to do it well. 
No matter how admirably we may be situated in the work 
in which we are engaged, there will come regularly the 
difficult, or the unexpected situation. There are always 
unpleasant tasks in whatever business we may be engaged, 
and if we have no love for our work, if it does not interest 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 25 

US, if we can not come to it each day with exhileration and 
joy, then we are indeed unfortunate. 

There are certain mental and moral traits, no doubt, 
which are necessary to success in any line. It is quite con- 
ceivable that in order to get on as a president of a great 
railroad system, or as a coal heaver, one should have energy. 
Industry, also, is necessary, no matter what we are trying 
to accomplish. Integrity, persistence, application, self-confi- 
dence within limits are all required if one is to succeed in 
the most exalted positions or at the humblest tasks. 

Do not choose a course of study simply because it seems 
in itself desirable. Scores of students fail in the College of 
Engineering of the University and in other technical courses 
for the reason that they have chosen their course of study 
on its merits without determining their personal fitness to 
pursue such a course. No course of study, no matter how 
well planned it may be, is a good one for you unless you have 
some special fitness for it. Neither should you choose your 
course of study on the principle that the best course is the 
one that leads immediately to the most remunerative position. 
Your future success does not depend upon the course you 
take, but upon your own talents and especially upon your 
preparation and fitness to fill an important place. There are al- 
ways opportunities for those who are thoroughly prepared to 
take advantage of them. A good many students choose a course 
of study because it seems easier than another, or because it 
may be completed within a somewhat shorter time. Such a 
method is a very foolish one. Often the best course is the 
most difficult, and the one which takes the longest time to 
complete. If you have to work for your living in college you 
will usually show judgment if you do not plan to complete 
your work within the four years. A year more or less does 
not matter, provided you have done your work well. You are 
not likely to earn your living, and do in the same time credit- 
ably the work to which other students have all their time to 
devote. You will be sensible to take another year. 

If after you have entered upon a course chosen in all 
good faith, it comes to you that you have made an unwise 



26 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

choice, and are attempting something for which you are not 
fitted, and for which you have no liking, do not hesitate to 
change. Finish the semester you have begun, and do your 
work energetically, and as well as you can. It is quite likely 
that the work you are carrying will apply as electives on 
another course you may choose, but even if this is not true 
you will not want to show yourself a "quitter" in the midst 
of a game, and you will not be so likely to secure permission 
to change to a second course if you have not done your best 
in the first one. 

In choosing a course of study at a state institution like 
the University of Illinois, which is supported by the people 
of the State, you should do so not only with an idea of what 
is best fitted to 3'^our own talents and tastes, and of what 
will bring you the most gratifying financial returns, but you 
should have in mind", also, in making your choice, that which 
will give you an opportunity for service to the State. Your 
education will cost the State of Illinois many times the 
amount which you will in fees pay to the institution. You 
are to pay this back by good citizenship ; by doing creditably 
whatever work you elect to do ; by doing it better than 
other people do it, and better than you yourself would have 
been able to do without the training you are to receive. 
When you choose your course, and when you are pursuing 
your course you should not lose sight of this fact. 

LITERATURE AND ARTS 

If you contemplate entering the College of Literature 
and Arts you should have cultivated the ability to write and 
speak English clearly and accurately; you should like to 
read, and should be able to do so rapidly. You will need, 
secondly, a good beginning in the study of some language 
other than your own, — the minimum requirement is three 
years, — and you should have some liking for foreign lan- 
guage study. The ancient languages, Greek and Latin, are less 
emphasized now than formerly, but no one who wishes to 
become a serious student of literature or history can afford 
to neglect them. The thoroughness of your work is, in 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 2/ 

general, of much more importance than the particular sub- 
jects studied before coming to college. A high school gradu- 
ate who has studied a few subjects thoroughly, and learned 
to study and think for himself, is more likely to succeed in 
college than the one who has studied many subjects super- 
ficially and never learned to stand intellectually on his own 
feet. 

The work of the college is divided broadly into (i) the 
general course, the purpose of which is to give that general 
knowledge and training which constitutes the best foundation 
for teaching, for later professional studies, or which pre- 
pares one to go directly into the affairs of life, and (2) those 
in business administration. 

The value of a general course is apparent. In some of 
our best universities a college course leading to the degree 
of Bachelor of Arts is required for admission to the pro- 
fessional schools of law, theology, medicine, and business, 
and the importance of such preparation is more and more 
generally recognized. The humanities and the sciences, 
which form the curriculum of the College of Literature and 
Arts, are directly helpful in the study of many professional 
subjects, because they develop that knowledge of nature and 
of human nature without which the highest success can not 
be secured in any profession. Even the student who looks 
forward to such a profession as engineering will find it to 
his advantage to widen his outlook by a study of the various 
subjects taught in this college. Finally, success in life can 
not be measured fully by earning power and professional ac- 
tivity. If you wish to be something more than a prosperous 
lawyer or business man; if you wish to live a well-rounded 
life, and do your part as a citizen in solving the hard 
problems of our modern life, you need to take every oppor- 
tunity to broaden your intellectual interests and sympathies 
before the special demands of your business, or profession 
begin to close in around you. Through the courses in lan- 
guage, literature, history, politics, economics, and the philo- 
sophical subjects, the College of Literature and Arts aims to 
supply these higher needs of our modern American citizen- 
ship. 



28 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

Even in the general course a student is given some op- 
portunity to specialize, for in order to graduate he must 
have made at least twenty-four hours of work in one subject 
called his major. The departments in which a student may 
make a major are : economics, education, English, French, 
German, Greek, history, household science, Latin, mathematics, 
philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. 

The courses in business administration are more tech- 
nical than is the general course, and are intended to prepare 
students for specific occupations. Courses have been ar- 
ranged, the purpose of which is to prepare for work in 
general business, banking, accountancy, railway traffic and 
accountancy, railway transportation, insurance, the consular 
service, and journalism. Students who go into these courses 
should have shown some fitness and liking for business, and 
must expect to be held to pretty^ rigid standards of scholar- 
ship. 

SCIENCE 

Modern life is so bound up with the sciences, so depend- 
ent upon them and their applications, that an acquaintance 
with them can not but be helpful whatever the life is to be, — 
therefore must be desirable and important in a general 
preparation for life, and must always be so. Even what 
have been specially called the learned professions, — theology, 
law, and medicine, — find a fitting basis in these matters with 
which others are dealing or concerning which mankind gener- 
ally is interested. 

Let the young man then who enjoys nature, who can 
and does see things when they are before him, who takes 
pleasure in new discoveries in fields, in woods, in shops and 
laboratories, who likes to make experiments with things, 
who wants visible proofs of truth, who wants to know what 
he knows upon his own authority and not upon that of another, 
who is willing to sacrifice ease for knowledge, or social stand- 
ing and preferment if need be for helpful ability in the mastery 
of the physical world, who wants to spend his life teaching 
others such things, or who wants these as a foundation 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 2g 

whatever life has in store for him — let such a young man 
turn his attention to the College of Science. 

The departments of science in the University are unique 
in that they are organized into a separate college instead of 
being, as in most other institutions, included as a part of 
the work of the liberal arts college. There are eleven de- 
partments in the college, including astronomy, botony, cera- 
mics, chemistry, entomology, geology, household science, 
mathematics, physics, physiology, and zoology. Seven specific 
courses are offered, viz., General Science, Household Science, 
the Six-Year Medical course. Ceramics, Ceramic Engineering, 
Chemistry, and Chemical Engineering. The first two — the 
second especially for young women — are intended to furnish 
a general education. They differ little from the ordinary 
courses in a liberal arts college, except that more emphasis 
is put upon science, and less upon language and literature. 
The other courses given in the college are of such a special 
character as to require a little more detailed explanation. 

The strong backbone of the courses in ceramics and 
ceramic engineering is mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, 

and physics. If a student has not done 
Ceramics and well in these subjects in the high school. 
Ceramic and if in addition to this fact he has 

Engineering shown no liking for these subjects, he 

may better hesitate before taking up the 
scientific study of ceramics. The requirements of these courses 
are rigid, the amount of work demanded is such as to leave a 
student little time for "fooling round," so that if one does 
not enjoy hard work he had better look somewhere else. 
The young man fond of active life in industrial pursuits, 
and willing to assume responsibility will not choose amiss 
if he elects one of the courses in ceramics. The course in 
ceramic engineering differs from the course in ceramics in 
that the latter deals more with engineering and constructional 
problems. The courses are practically the same for the first 
two years. 

The field of ceramics deals with the three large indus- 
tries, the clay, the cement, and glass industries in all of their 



30 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

subdivisions. The positions which are open range in scope 
from that of foreman, head burner, draftsman, to that of 
chief chemist, superintendent, and manager. The demand 
for men trained along these lines is far greater than the 
supply. From the technical standpoint ceramics covers the 
so called silicate industries dealing with the manufacture of 
hundreds of useful products from the non-metallic minerals 
and rocks of the country. With the growing scarcity of tim- 
ber, with the growing demand for better health conditions, 
and with the growth of the universal sentiment for a more 
permanent and artistically satisfying civilization, the field of 
ceramics is bound to grow in importance. 

The student who elects to take either of the chemical 
courses should have shown special interest and skill in both 
chemistry and mathematics. Half of the 
Chemistry and work in the course in chemistry is made 
Chemical up of these two subjects, and in chemi- 

Engineering cal engineering two-thirds of the course 

is made up of these two, and related sub- 
jects. One would have a sorry time if he showed inaptitude 
along either of these two lines. Industry is demanded, and 
some skill in the handling of apparatus, for the amount of lab- 
oratory work required is such as to occupy the major part of 
the student's time, especially during the last two years of the 
course. Facility in modern languages is also very desirable. 

Men completing the course in chemistry go into a great 
variety of work, among which may be mentioned positions as 
chemists in packing houses, in the testing laboratories of rail- 
roads, in commercial laboratories which examine materials of 
all kinds, in experiment station work for the states and for the 
United States government, and in research laboratories of 
large industrial concerns, as for instance in those manufactur- 
ing electrical apparatus or India rubber. So far chemists 
have had little difficulty in finding satisfactory positions. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 3 1 

It is possible for a student who wishes to prepare for the 
practice of medicine to enter most of the medical colleges of 
this country directly from the high school 
Medical without having had any general college 

Course training. This method of procedure is 

very inadvisable, however, for in no pro- 
fession does a broad general and scientific training count for 
more than in the medical profession. Indeed, the best medi- 
cal colleges of the country now require students to have had 
from one to four years of college training before they may 
be admitted. The Medical Course is intended especially for 
those students who are intending to study medicine. It 
extends over three years, and is very largely scientific. Stu- 
dents who complete this course will receive the degree of 
Bachelor of Arts on the completion of the first year's work in 
the medical college, and will be entitled to the degree of 
Doctor of Medicine at the end of the third year in the 
medical college, thus completing the work for both degrees 
in six years. The opportunities for trained and skillful phy- 
sicians and surgeons seem too nearly self-evident to mention 
them here. 

ENGINEERING 

The freshman entering upon an engineering course 
should understand that he is taking the initial step leading 
to an exacting profession. Skill of hand is desirable, but not 
essential, though skill of hand alone will not make an engineer. 
The engineer's activities are based chiefly upon intellectual 
qualities and attainments. The man builds well as an engi- 
neer who understands the facts of practice and who is able 
to adapt these facts to his peculiar problems. The student 
who has fair ability, and a willingness to work, may achieve 
success as an engineer. Some taste for mathematics is a pre- 
requisite, and in any case success in the mathematical work 
of a chosen course is absolutely essential. 

The student of engineering must be prepared to bestow 
an unusual degree of devotion on the work of his course, 
Many things which young men enjoy doing, and which are 
right and proper in their places, are denied the student of 



32 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

engineering because of the exacting character of his work. 
He can not neglect work today in the expectation that the 
deficiency may be made good tomorrow. The work of each 
day must be done as it is assigned him. 

The work of the courses in engineering is not unattrac- 
tive, however, nor is the process one of drudgery. The re- 
verse is true. Those who have a taste for the work, 
and they are the only ones who should take it up, find in the 
developments of the course that which increases the inti- 
macy of their acquaintance with the engineer's art, with ma- 
chines, buildings, and structures which he makes, and with 
the principles of design which underlie their action and 
stability. In the unfolding of a science there is everything 
to attract and to inspire, and experience proves that young men 
are not slow to respond to such influences. 

The courses in engineering are of necessity largely tech- 
nical, and pretty rigidly prescribed. In order that the train- 
ing may be as broad as possible all engineering students, not 
graduates of a literary college, are required to complete pre- 
scribed courses of reading of a non-professional character, 
following the freshman and sophomore years. A circular 
explaining the requirement, and containing a list of books 
from which the student may choose, may be found at the 
office of the Dean of the college. Throughout the year one 
general lecture a week is given which freshmen are required 
to attend. Various shop trips are also arranged to furnish 
means of practical observation of the principles they have 
been studying. 

The College of Engineering offers courses in Architec- 
ture, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical 
Engineering, Municipal and Sanitary Engineering, and Rail- 
way Engineering, each of which is mentioned briefly below. 

The general qualities required for success in the practice 
of architecture are much the same as those required for suc- 
cess in any high calling. Primarily archi- 
Architecture tecture is one of the fine arts ; and the pos- 

session of certain natural gifts, indicated 
in youth by imagination, a love of drawing, of color, and of 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 33 

beautiful things in general, are of great value to the student 
who adopts architecture as a profession. Facility in drawing, 
which is after all only the medium of expression of ideas, 
can be acquired, and creative faculties can within moderate 
limits be developed. In addition to these artistic gifts the 
student should have the power of close application, and a 
willingness to work hard. 

The successful architect must, also, be a good business 
man. He must as a regular part of his business make con- 
tracts, organize and direct work, and secure patronage. 
Sometimes his most difficult task is to adjust his ideas to 
those of his client, and "get the job." The j-oung fellow with 
good manners, and a knowledge of human nature will find 
these qualities a valuable asset. 

The opportunities open to graduates must always depend 
largely on the aptitude and ability of the individual. Gradu- 
ates from the course in architecture usually enter the offices 
of architects in the capacity of draftsmen, and such employ- 
ment is easily secured. Advancement is reasonably rapid for 
men of ability. The highest positions in the office are chief 
designer, engineer, or office foreman, which pay comfortable 
salaries, and to which, in some cases, a percentage of the 
net profits of the firm are added. From this position the 
more enterprising and able individual generally finds an 
opening for independent practice where, as in all callings, 
there is much room, a good income, and high honor to him 
who pushes on toward the top. 

It is only within comparatively recent years that the 
various branches of engineering now so commonly known 
have been recognized; Civil Engineering- 
Civil as first developed covered the whole field 
Engineering of engineering and architecture. Now we 
have in the University a half dozen dif- 
ferent departments of engineering besides architecture. 

At present Civil Engineering covers the construction of 
steam and electric railroads, bridges, roads and pavements, 
canals, irrigation works, municipal water supply, sewerage 
systems, the development of water power and the improve- 



34 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

ment of rivers and harbors. At the University of Illinois 
Civil Engineering as above defined is covered by three separ- 
ate courses in three different departments, viz. : civil engi- 
neering, municipal and sanitary engineering, and railway civil 
engineering. These three courses are identical to the middle 
of the third year, and have much in common for the remain- 
der of the time. 

The requirements for a successful career as a civil engi- 
neer are: (i) an interest in mathematics, (2) skill as a 
draftsman, (3) a liking to construct things, (4) an ability 
to direct the efforts of others, and (5) a vision to see the 
relations of the principles of science and of mechanics to the 
problem in hand. 

The problems of the civil engineer are large, and hence 
give the inspiration of cooperation in the accomplishment of 
great enterprises. The civil eagineer must have a clear 
vision, and be able to solve the many interesting and im- 
portant problems which arise in the management of men, the 
use of materials, and the choice of ways and means of exe- 
cuting the work. Most of the structures which he builds 
must be made to fit particular conditions, so that their con- 
struction requires ability, and a wide range of knowledge. 
Many students consider it an advantage, also, that much of 
the work of the civil engineer is out of doors. 

The field of the civil engineer is constantly widening; 
and the thorough knowledge and the study of the problems 
involved in the profession fits the young civil engineer for 
various lines of activity. It is probable that any student who 
has reasonable aptitude for civil engineering, and who does 
his work fairly well, will almost certainly find interesting, 
instructive, and remunerative employment after graduation. 

Students who in the high school are fond of physics, 
chemistr}'-, and mathematics, and who have carried these 
subjects well, are undoubtedly better able 
Electrical to take up the study of electrical engineer- 

Engineering ing than if they had found these subjects 

difficult or uninteresting. The fact that a 
student has shown manual or mechanical skill, that he has 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 35 

been able to construct a battery, or a working motor, is not 
in itself any indication that he has fitness for the profession 
of electrical engineering. Mechanical skill is not necessary, 
though of course it is an advantage. Students are frequent- 
ly disappointed in engineering courses, and especially in elec- 
trical engineering, because of the great extent to which 
theories and principles are presented to the exclusion of 
engineering practice. The course must of necessity occupy 
itself with the presentation of scientific principles, and their 
relation to each other; the graduate will have little difficulty 
in solving the practical problems which he will meet in his 
work. 

A graduate of the department has learned the funda- 
mental principles of electricity; he has learned sufficient of 
mathematics so that he can, with some work, solve the 
problems that are met with in the practical application of 
electricity. He is not a so-called "practical electrician." He 
can not run a street car, or build a dynamo, but he can quickly 
learn how to do all of these things, and do them as they 
should be done. He is equipped to be a good helper in any 
branch, and he should reach eventually the most important 
positions. 

Many opportunities are open to the electrical engineer 
with training and experience. He may go into teaching, into 
telegraphy, into electric railroading, or he may find work in 
electric lighting, or in electric power transmission. If he adds 
to his knowledge executive ability his chances for advancement 
and influence will be almost indefinitely increased. 

The successful mechanical engineer must be interested 
in machinery, and in the working of mechanical appliances. 
With him, also, manual skill is desirable. 
Mechanical but not requisite. If he understands prin- 

Engineering ciples he need not be a skillful manipulator 

of tools. He should have a decided liking 
and capacity for mathematics, and for subjects of a mathe- 
matical nature. Too many young men have the mistaken idea 
that the ability to make things is indicative of the embryo 
engineer. The mechanical engineer must have reasoning 



36 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

power, must be able to recognize principles, and put them 
into practice ; if he is a successful engineer other people 
will be doing the manual labor in the organization which 
he has planned, and which he manages. Quoting from a re- 
cently published handbook for prospective engineers : 

"In all industrial enterprises a very large portion of the 
work of organizing, and nearly all of the work of designing, 
constructing and operating falls to the lot of the mechanical 
engineer. Thus in any manufacturing establishment machin- 
ery must be built, installed, and operated; buildings and other 
structures must be erected; power plants must be established; 
heating and ventilating systems must be installed ; and other 
engineering work must be performed, the arrangement, con- 
struction, and operation being suitable for the purpose, and of 
such a nature that the work may be accomplished with the 
greatest ejfficiency, and the least cost." 

The graduate in mechanical engineering will not at first 
occupy a high position, for he will need to acquire experience 
before he can direct great enterprises. He will probably first 
begin his work in the drafting room, or the shops. After he 
has had practical experience in addition to his training, many 
lines of work are open to him. The successful graduates of 
the University are now employed as consulting engineers ; in 
the manufacturing of machine tools, engines, and machinery 
of all sorts ; in the operation of power plants ; in the railway 
service ; in mechanical engineering in mines ; in the United 
States civil service in the Patent Office, or on fuel tests in 
the geological survey; in all kinds of enterprises where me- 
chanical engineering work is required. There are opportuni- 
ties for all sorts of individual talents, in this work as in others, 
and if the student has executive ability he adds to his chances 
of success. 

The qualifications for a student wishing to study Mining 
Engineering are not particularly different than for other engi- 
neering departments. The fundamentals of 
Mining the course are mathematics, mechanics. 

Engineering chemistry, and physics, and a student who 

shows an inaptitude for these subjects 
should avoid mining engineering as other engineering courses. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 37 

The opinion prevails that Mining Engineering is more danger- 
ous than other branches of engineering and that work under- 
ground is more arduous and less desirable than work upon 
the surface. Neither of these statements is correct, and dur- 
ing the extreme weather of winter and summer the mining 
engineer has a decided advantage, as he has an equable tem- 
perature underground. 

Mining Engineering is probably the most composite of 
the engineering courses, for the reason that the mining engi- 
neer is frequently located in a small and out of the way place 
where he is not in touch with commercial centers and must, 
therefore, frequently be his own civil, electrical, mechanical 
and chemical engineer. 

There are two distinct branches of Mining Engineering 
that should be considered by a person selecting the course, — 
the structural or design side, which is closely allied to Civil 
and Mechanical Engineering, and requires the same mathe- 
matical bent as is required in these latter branches of engi- 
neering, and the metallurgical or chemical side, which does 
not require the same bent for mathematical and design work, 
and is more closely allied to Chemical Engineering. The 
course at the University as at present designed allows options 
along either of these lines, although this does not at present 
show in the catalog. 

The graduate in Mining may take any one of four direc- 
tions : (i) Coal mining, in which the Civil and the Mechanical 
Engineering branches have heretofore predominated. Since 
the establishment of the Federal Bureau of Mines, however, 
much greater attention is being paid in America to scientific 
investigations, and coal mining now offers an attractive field 
for chemical and other research. (2) Metalliferous mining, 
which is similar to coal mining in a general way, but the 
geological problems of which are usually more important, and 
the mechanical problems less important. (3) Metallurgy'', 
which is a combination of the mechanical and chemical sides 
of the subject. (4) Applied geolog\-, which depends upon 
geological and chemical subjects, and the descriptive part of 
Mining Engineering, rather than upon the theoretical and de- 
sign branches. In any one of these directions the capable stu- 



38 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

dent will find ample opportunity for the exercise of his talents. 

As engineers in municipal and sanitary work have to deal 
with people, and come in close contact with the public, tact 
and address, and the ability to present one's 
Municipal and ideas convincingly are needed. Such an en- 
Sanitary gineer should be able to express himself 
Engineering well in writing and in speech. Of course, 
the usual requirements of mathematics, and 
of constructional and administrative ability, and the other ele- 
ments of a successful engineer are essential. Possibly hy- 
draulics and sanitary engineering have less to do with in- 
volved mathematical analyses than most lines of engineering. 

The course in Municipal and Sanitary Engineering differs 
from the Civil Engineering course in emphasizing hydraulics, 
sanitary construction, and public works, as well as 
work in steam engineering and the principles of electrical ma- 
chinery. The course is not too hi'ghly specialized to give an 
excellent general training in civil engineering. 

With the great growth of cities, problems concerning the 
public health and public utilities, the provision of water sup- 
ply, the caring for municipal wastes, and the construction of 
various public works are becoming increasingly important. 
Soon half the population of the country will be living under 
urban conditions. Higher standards are demanded each year, 
and conditions which have prevailed in a new and growing 
country will give way to the higher requirements of the older 
communities. The money being invested in public works is 
reaching enormous amounts. It seems evident that there must 
be large demands in the future for engineers to take charge 
of this class of work. Water-works construction and water- 
works operation itself offers a promising field. Outside of 
municipal work there is a large and growing field for the 
hydraulic and sanitary engineer. 

The hydraulic and sanitary engineer is engaged in the 
design, construction and operation of water-supply properties, 
the design and construction of sewerage systems and sewage 
purification works, the improvement of rivers, and the recla- 
mation of lands. Closely allied to this are irrigation and water 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 39 

power engineering. The engineer of public works also deals 
with pavement construction, foundations and masonry con- 
struction, and a great variety of general engineering problems. 
As may be expected, graduates of the course in Municipal and 
Sanitary Engineering are engaged in municipal engineering, 
as consulting engineers in hydraulics and sanitary engineering, 
and in a variety of general civil engineering lines. So long 
as the growth of cities increases, and the demand for better 
sanitar}^ conditions prevails, he will have little difficulty in find- 
ing work. 

The course in Railway Engineering is designed especially 
for men who desire to know the railway service. Just at the 

time when the railroads are under public 
Railway criticism, and when railway officials find 

Engineering themselves confronted with the necessity of 

increased efficiency in operation, there is a 
demand for high grade men who can serve in the various 
departments of railroads. The usual processes of promotion 
in the railway service are not supplying men, either in number 
or in quality, who are essential for the present da}^ and future 
needs. The college is more and more being looked upon as the 
normal source of supph^, and the leaders in railway work are 
agreed that the training of the college course may well be 
specialized both along engineering lines and administrative 
lines in order that college graduates may be better prepared 
for railway service. In studying the design and performance 
of steam engines, attention may well be given the steam loco- 
motive ; in studying electrical machinery, certain students may 
properly emphasize the problems of electric traction ; and in 
studying economics, accountancy and business organization, 
examples may well be taken in the problems peculiar to the 
railroads. The University of Illinois is practically the only in- 
stitution in the country which thus far has provided for such 
specialization through the maintenance of its course in Railway 
Engineering. 

AGRICULTURE 
The boy brought up on a farm, with a training received in 
the countr}^ and with land of his own, or a chance to get 



40 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

land, should find his life work on the farm unless he can give 
a more than ordinarily good reason for doing otherwise. Men 
who like the free, independent, open life of the country, who 
enjoy working out of doors, who like animals, who take pleas- 
ure in nature, will find boundless opportunities in agriculture. 
It is interesting to note that half the students who come to the 
University College of Agriculture have not been brought up 
on a farm, and do not come from the farm, but from the 
towns and cities. Some of these men do not intend to become 
farmers, but expect to be bankers, business men, scientists, and 
they realize how closely these other interests are connected 
with scientific agriculture. 

An agricultural college course should furnish the student 
with the knowledge of the fundamental principles which must 
underlie the maintenance of soil fertility, the production of 
crops, the nutrition and care of animals, etc., but with all of 
this knowledge the farmer must jn large measure make his 
own plans, not only for the regular daily and yearh^ operation 
of the farm, but also for action in times of emergency or un- 
usual conditions. He should also develop executive ability in 
order that he may be able to direct the work of others effi- 
ciently, and finally he must have business ability, because he 
must buy and sell. 

No intelligent person now expects to m.ake a success in 
agricultural pursuits, not even in the humblest positions, with- 
out education and training. The opportunities in agriculture 
are unquestionably greater in number than in any other field 
of human endeavor, but they vary in magnitude from that of 
the hired man on the small farm to the general management 
of estates or ranches of thousands of acres. But whether one 
starts as a hired man, as a renter, as the owner of a small or 
a large farm, or as the manager of a landed estate, he will 
be better equipped for his position and advancement because 
of an agricultural education; and it may be added that an 
agricultural course, including, as it does, a good deal of train- 
ing in the fundamental sciences of chemistry and biology, and 
also some training in language and literature, in addition to 
special training in soil fertility, soil management, crop pro- 
duction, farm mechanics, and the breeding, feeding, and care 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 4I 

of animals, serves as a good foundation for almost any busi- 
ness which may be related to agriculture, such as banking, 
especially in the country towns, real estate, grain dealing, mill- 
ing, dealing in agricultural implements, and many lines of 
manufacturing. 

Though not every farmer boy should be expected to re- 
turn to the farm after taking a course in college, neverthe- 
less it is well to keep in mind that the young man who has 
spent most of his life in practical agriculture, up to the age 
of twenty, will have acquired definite knowledge of a thous- 
and facts which would help him to win success in the prac- 
tical application of his college training on the farm, but which 
will in large measure be lost if he should enter some life 
work unrelated to agriculture. On the other hand, the city 
boy who enjoys country life, and who has a mind to work will 
be able to acquire a reasonable acquaintance with the art of 
farming by devoting himself to the actual practice upon the 
farm for a few years ; and, with his college training in addi- 
tion, he will then be far better equipped to succeed on the 
farm than the average farmer will ever be without the college 
training. 

The courses in agriculture at the University offer a suffi- 
cient variety of special lines to adapt themselves to the tastes 
and talents of the individual. One can not graduate without 
some special training, nor without having done some work to 
broaden his intellectual outlook. The major work of the 
college is done in five departments, — Agronomy, Animal Hus- 
bandry, Dairy Husbandry, Horticulture, and Household Sci- 
ence. The last of these furnishes training for young women 
in the science and art of household affairs and home making, 
as well as prepares teachers of domestic science in the schools. 
Men are not, however, excluded from these courses. Whether 
a man specializes in Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, Dairy Hus- 
bandry, or Horticulture should be determined by his tastes, 
his probable location after graduation, and his opportunities 
to go into one sort of work or another. The student with 
a farm of his own should be guided largely by what is possible 
or best to do with that farm. The man without a farm is 
somewhat more at liberty to choose. 



42 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

A young man thoroughly well trained in agriculture has 
before him unlimited opportunities for a useful career. The 
young man 3''et undecided as to his future career will find in the 
College of Agriculture useful and cultural training. It would 
seek to fill him with boundless enthusiasm, and set before him 
high ideals, intellectual and moral. That agricultural educa- 
tion pays in dollars and cents, in desirable positions, in oppor- 
tunities for promotion, in usefulness, influence, and happiness, 
is evident from the experience of those who have taken this 
course and gone into the world. 

LAW 

Regular students entering the College of Law are now 
required to obtain one year of college credit before 
they are admitted. Students twenty-one years of age, or over, 
may be admitted as special students, but are not eligible for a 
degree. Those who study law to acquaint themselves with 
its principles as a part of a general education, without any 
intention of going into the practice of the profession, are 
increasing in number, but the qualifications for success on 
the part of these are not materially different from those 
qualifications required for the successful pursuit of a general 
education. 

The student who takes up the study of law for the pur- 
pose of later engaging in the practice of law as a profession 
should have a mind capable of logical analysis. A good 
memory, an untiring industry are not sufficient ; the student 
must be able to apply legal reasoning to the solution of the 
questions submitted to him or he will fail as a lawyer. He 
must have the ability to think independently, to reason accur- 
ately. Law is made up of formal rules and precedents, but 
if the system is to live it must grow. The demand for lawyers 
of constructive ability is greater in this than in any other 
age. 

The law student should be of a practical turn of mind. 
The lawyer is called upon to solve the problems born of the 
struggle between conservative and radical forces ; he should 
be of so practical a turn of mind that he can get away from 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 45 

old worn-out precedents, and at the same time not try to de- 
molish the entire structure of legal machinery. The idealist, 
the extremist, the socialist should not try to be a lawyer. 

The law student should have the power of ready ex- 
pression, both in writing and in speech. This ability is, of 
course, largely a matter of cultivation, but there should be 
some natural talent, especially if the student is ambitious to 
succeed as an advocate. He must have a guarded tongue, how- 
ever. The lawyer who talks too much, or too freely, does not 
inspire confidence. Men come to him with their troubles and 
their secrets. The law recognizes this fact in shielding the 
attorney and the client from testifying to any disclosures 
made b}^ the client. If it is hard for the student to keep a 
close mouth, if he has a natural proneness to throw open his 
windows and expose his furniture, then he should not take 
up the profession of law. 

Above all the young man who enters the study of law 
with a view to practicing the profession should have the in- 
stincts of honesty in a high degree. There is no profession 
in which the temptations to dishonesty, and the opportunities 
to commit fraud are greater than in the legal profession ; and 
yet the success that is attained by sharp practice, cunning, and 
misrepresentation, is of short life. The brilliant lawyer with 
a low sense of honor never attains a high standing in his 
profession. The crook is out of place in the law, 

A great many people advise the young man not to go 
into the law, for the reason, as they say, that there are too many 
law5'-ers. No other profession offers wider opportunities for 
advancement and influence to young men of integrity, ability, 
and industry. Even at the outset the well-trained man may 
make a living, and will not need to "starve for ten years" as 
v/as once said to be expected. 

LIBRARY SCIENCE 

College training for the librarian is only of recent origin, 
the first library school having been organized in 1887. The 
Library School at the University was established in 1893 ^t 
Armour Institute, Chicago, and became a part of the Univer- 



44 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

sity in 1893. It has so far attracted women mostly, though 
the demand for men as trained librarians is constantly grow- 
ing wider. 

The student who takes up the work of the librarian should 
be methodical, adaptable, forceful, tactful, and careful of his 
appearance, since he will regularly have to meet people in a 
business way, and must be capable of doing business with 
the young and the old, the educated and the illiterate. The 
successful librarian is an organizer, and an administrator. 
The "lady-like" man need not apply for a job as librarian. 
He may not wisely be dogmatic in his views, but he must be 
able to think for himself, and to stand on his own feet. The 
librarian must know about books rather than to be a lover of 
books, or even a reader of books. There is a saying that "The 
librarian who reads is dead," which means that the up-to-date 
librarian is too busy to find time to read books ; he must know 
what is in them without reading^them. 

Students who apply for admission to the Library School 
must present credentials showing that they possess a bachelor's 
degree in arts or science either from the University, or from 
some other approved college. The Library course is two years 
in length, and covers all phases of practical and technical 
Library work. The fact that the School is located in the Uni- 
versity library is of inestimable value to students. 

The demand for men as librarians, and as heads of de- 
partments in libraries is constantly increasing, with little like- 
lihood of its being supplied. The occupation is a pleasant one, 
which gives a man an immediate social standing in the com- 
munity in which he is employed. The life is independent, the 
hours are reasonable, and the remuneration satisfactory. 

MUSIC 

The courses offered in the School of Music may very 
profitably form a part of a good general education. If, how- 
ever, a student hopes to make music a profession, and from its 
practice to earn a living, or to accomplish something of dis- 
tinction, he should hesitate about going into it unless he has 
demonstrated pretty thoroughly that he has more than com- 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 45 

monplace musical ability in one direction or another. Few pro- 
fessions are more exacting or demand for success greater 
genius or more persistent practice through many years. 

With fair skill, however, and a willingness to work, a 
music student has a reasonable future to look forward to, es- 
pecially if he has had training in more than one line. If one 
has studied the piano, for instance, and can at the same time 
sing, play a violin, or a band instrument, he is likely to find 
satisfactory employment. Public school music is now receiv- 
ing attention all over the country, and offers opportunities for 
those who have had the required training. It is only the 
broadly trained musician with some talent who will ever reach 
any degree of distinction. 



Studies and Other Things 



* 



No one disputes the fact that for a young fellow in col- 
lege studies are the main thing. Father thinks so. When Son 
comes home for the spring vacation Father shows no feverish 
interest in his chances for making the ball team or getting 
in with the gang that names the candidate for class presi- 
dent. His first question is, "How are you coming on with 
your studies?" The neighbors, or at least such of them as 
hold recognized positions in the community, think so. When 
at Christmas time you meet the pastor of the M. E. Church, 
or Gofi who runs, the grain elevator, or young Miller who is 
working in the Farmers' Loan Bank, he doesn't speak about 
your getting onto the scrubs in your first year, nor inquire 
if you've made a Greek letter fraternity; the first thing he 
wants information on is your studies. It is the grade in Math. 
9 and the Phi Beta Kappa pin that take Father's eye ; and 
three home runs in the ball game with Chicago don't mean so 
much to the home community as an excerpt in the local paper 
from the letter which the Dean wrote to Father announcing 
that you'd made preliminary honors. The college faculty, 
little as their judgment may be worth, thinks so. No matter 
how beautifully you do the quarter miles, or how necessary 
you are to the success of the mandolin club, if you don't carry 
the required nine hours, or whatever the rule may demand, 
you must move on. So every one starting into the University 
of Illinois might just as well recognize at the outset that 
studies are the main thing, and make his plans accordingly. 

Every young man who begins a college course should do 
so with the idea that he is in college for the accomplishment 
of a definite work, and that it is to this that he must give his 
"best endeavor. Too many fellows have the notion that in col- 
lege they are in preparation for an indefinite something com- 
ing later, and that until it arrives there is little necessity of 

*Reprinted from the Illinois Magazine, October, 1910. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 47 

agitation of any sort. They think of college life as a 
quiet, unaggressive waiting place where they may sojourn 
until an opening appears into which they are to drop. Until 
the proper time arrives they are to enjoy themselves as best 
they may and not let anything interfere with their enjoyment. 
If they could realize at once, as they usually come to see later, 
that their college work is for them the real business of life, 
and as serious a business as they will ever find, there would 
be fewer intellectual disasters. 

By far the largest percentage of failures in the University 
come not from the fact that men are stupid or dissipated, or 
because the amount of work they have to do is unreasonable, 
but because they do not do their work seriously at first; they 
are procrastinating and wake up too late to the fact that their 
daily work is the thing that they should have been at from 
the very beginning. If men took their work as seriously in 
October as they do in January, or immediately before the 
finals, there would be a great many more honor men than 
there are. 

As a rule the task set for the average college student 
is a very moderate one, the amount and the character of the 
work required quite within the range of his ability. I have 
known thousands of students ; I have never known a dozen 
whose metal equipment was inadequate to the accomplishment 
of the work they had elected to do, if they had gone at it in 
the right way and when it was assigned. The time at the 
student's disposal is seldom if ever insufficient, unless he is 
trying to support himself at the same time that he pursues 
his studies. In such a case this is not a normal situation, and 
he must choose between conflicting interests. In spite of what 
I have said, however, in the University of Illinois usually 
one student in three fails more or less completely to carry the 
work for which he is registered. 

Perhaps the fact that he has so much time in which to 
do his work is one of the very reasons why the student fails 
to do it at all. There are many distractions, especially at the 
beginning of a college course, — the games, the picture shows, 
fraternities, — that take his attention, and, very little apparent 



48 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

necessity for at once doing the work assigned. It seems quite 
possible and at times even a virtue to let the tasks accumulate 
and to do them all in one noble effort. The result is that 
the time drifts by, the work piles up, until at last there comes 
an appalling awakening and a sudden realization of the fact 

that he is so far behind that there is little hope of his ever 
catching up. That which would have been perfectly easy 
if it had been accomplished when it was assigned, when al- 
lowed to go too long, proves an impossibility. The first lesson 
you should learn is that your work is your business and that 
it must be attended to regularly or it will go into bankruptcy. 

Once get behind and the damage seems well nigh irre- 
parable. I have often said, and might cite scores of illustra- 
tions, that what one does the first six weeks of his college 
course may safely be taken as indicative of what he will do 
during the remainder of the four (and frequently more) years. 
Unless at the very beginning he learns to work regularly, he 
will have a hard time to learn later. 

I have in mind a young fellow who made an excellent 
high school record. He came to college with perhaps a little 
too much confidence in his past, and as a consequence he 
worked little the first few weeks, depending upon a sprint 
at the end to carry him safely through. He lagged behind 
more than he had intended, and though he seemed to do his 
best when he came to a realization of his condition, he 
failed. And he has done so ever since. He has ability, but 
he seems to have lost the power of will to get to work. His 
case is similar to hundreds of others whom I have known. 
Regularity of work is absolutely necessary if one would get 
on, and this regularity must be learned at the beginning. It 
is a habit which one is not likely to learn if one has loafed for 
a while. It is hard to play the ant after one has long been 
cast in the role of the grasshopper. 

It is not enough that a student work regularly, he must 
apply himself to his work with concentration of mind. The 
fellow who puts in the most hours is not necessarily the best 
student. It is the one who works regularly and who works 
hard as well — who has his whole mind on what he is doing — 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 49 

who will accomplish the most and who will get the best de- 
velopment out of his work. 

One of the poorest students with whom I have had to 
suffer was as regular in his work as the phases of the moon 
and as sure to be at his books as taxes, but he worked too 
much, and he had no concentration. He would go to sleep 
while writing his theme as readily as I did while reading it. 
He worked without method and without application, and so 
he failed to carry anything. The best student I have ever 
known — and by that I mean not only the man who was best 
in his studies, but in the "other things" — put in very few 
hours at his work, but he studied every night and when he 
worked his whole mind was directed toward what he wished 
to accomplish ; he did not let anything come between him and 
what he was doing, and when he was through, he stopped and 
put his work away. He won through regularity and concen- 
tration, and these qualities are usually to be discovered when 
any man, student or otherwise, succeeds. 

But the "other things" are important; only slightly less 
important in fact than the studies themselves. However 
much a man may be devoted to his work, he can not study all 
the time, and he should not be allowed to do so even if it 
were possible. As I remember my own college course and try 
to estimate, as it is impossible justly to do, its present worth 
to me, I am inclined to value most highly some of the things 
that were connected only remotely with the studies I was 
pursuing. These external things naturally would have been 
of little value to me unless I had carried the work I was 
taking, for matters were so conducted in our home circle that 
a place would readily have been found for me on the farm 
had I shown any chronic inaptitude in securing passing grades. 
But granting that ability, these "other things" seem to me of 
the greatest value. As a college instructor I can seldom find 
much excuse for the man who does not carry his college 
work, but the man who does not do more than this, no matter 
how high his scholastic standing may be, has missed a very 
large part of what every man should get from a college train- 
ing. The college life is as much a community life as that 
which any man will ever live. In a college community no 



50 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

man can live to himself alone, or for himself alone, and profit 
greatly from the life. He has his own private and individual 
work to do, it is true, and he should do it; but he has also 
his obligations to his fellow students and to the college com- 
munity at large, and these he may not shirk. I heard a man 
once boast that during his college course he had never 
cut a class or seen an athletic contest. I am not sure that 
either fact was a virtue, and notwithstanding that he now 
wears a badge won by high scholastic standing in college, I 
think that his training might have been broader if his inter- 
ests in college had, perhaps, been varied enough to make it 
desirable for him sometimes to cut a class, or interesting to 
attend a ball game. A man's studies should give him famili- 
arity with ideas, and training with principles ; the "other 
things" in which .he interests himself should make him ac- 
quainted with people, and furnfsh him some opportunity to 
get experience in the management of erratic human beings. 
Whether the business which a young man finally takes up 
happens to be designing gas engines or preaching the gospel 
he will find daily opportunities for the exercise of both sorts 
of training. 

It is a somewhat overworked and jaded joke that class 
valedictorians generally bring up as street car conductors or 
as hack drivers, not that I should like to underestimate the 
amount of intelligence required successfully to perform the 
work of either one of these worthy offices — and though, per- 
haps, it is a joke there are too many instances of stu- 
dents of the the highest scholastic standing filling the most 
commonplace positions simply from lack of initiative or ability 
to assume leadership. The lack of ability to handle men often 
keeps a young fellow from an opportunity to utilize his edu- 
cational stock in trade. Social training in college, then, is a 
very desirable thing. I do not mean by this statement, how- 
ever, to encourage what is technically known in college as the 
■"fusser." There is little intellectual or business advantage in 
a college man's becoming an adapt in pleasing young women 
unless he expects to be a man milliner or to run a soda foun- 
tain. What he needs is association with men. 

There are a number of ways in which such an association 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 5 1 

may be cultivated. The ordinary method which simply for the 
sake of enjoyment takes a man out among his fellows — and 
sometimes his fellows' sisters — is not to be ignored nor worked 
too strenuously. Parties and picnics, and social calls, and 
long quiet strolls when the moon is full are in moderation, 
helpful, perhaps, but they should not be developed into a regu- 
lar business. Even a good thing may be overdone. It is exceed- 
ingly desirable that a man should learn how to manage his 
hands and feet and tongue, but it is quite possible to devote 
too much time to acquiring such information. The man who 
omits all social life of this sort makes a mistake ; the fellow 
who devotes a large part of his time to it is mushy. 

I have a strong belief in the value of athletics. It is 
true that some of the poorest students I have ever known 
have called themselves athletes, but I have known more good 
students than poor ones who have been prominent in athletic 
events. The man at the University of Illinois who has received 
the highest class standing of any student in twenty-five years 
was both an athlete and a musician. In the minds of many 
people either fact should have been sufficient to ruin him 
scholastically. The man who goes into athletics sanely has a 
good chance of developing a strong body; both tradition and 
necessity demands that he live a temperate healthy life, and 
his thinking powers and his ability to do mental work are 
likely to be stimulated by the regular exercise which he must 
take. It is true that few students ever do themselves damage 
from working too hard, but a great many develop chronic indi- 
gestion and general physical worthlessness from sitting in 
stuffy rooms and taking no exercise. I should not go so far 
as to say that the athlete is usually a better student than the 
fellow who does not go in for such things, but he is usually 
a better all-around m.an than the other fellow, he has more 
stamina and endurance, because of his symmetrical develop- 
ment, he is likely also to make a greater success in his pro- 
fession. For this reason as well as for the pleasure and re- 
laxation there is in it, I believe every student who can should 
go in for some athletic game. 

A good many societies, in addition to the Greek letter 
fraternities, in the University of Illinois will bid for the stu- 



52 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

dent's time and attendance. Many very worthy people think 
these are wholly bad, and advise the young man entering col- 
lege to steer clear of them all as he would dodge smallpox 
and the tax collector. All these organizations have their uses, 
however, and in the majority of cases they seem to me good. 
Most men would be helped by joining a literary or a debating 
society both on account of the personal associations which they 
would cultivate, and for the training it would give them in 
speaking and writing. Technical societies develop an interest 
in one's professional work, and social organizations bring in- 
dividuals together in a systematic way. The benefits and evils 
of the Greek letter fraternities have been much discussed by 
those who know about them and by those who have simply 
heard. At the University they have on the whole been help- 
ful. 

A man who has religious fendencies will find many ex- 
cellent opportunities to exercise these. The University Young 
Men's Christian Association is strong, and other college re- 
ligious organizations are every year multiplying and are con- 
stantly on the lookout for help and leadership. The local 
churches are eager for young fellows to take hold and help 
with the infinite number of things which are to be run. Such 
work offers an excellent chance for development and for wid- 
ening one's acquaintance with men. Its danger lies in its 
very nature which makes it seem wholly good. Anomalous as 
the statement may seem, I have known plenty of men go 
intellectually to the bad through the dissipation of religious 
work. A college man's studies, as has been said, furnish his 
real business, and whatever takes him away from these un- 
duly whether it be a ball game, a dance, or a prayer meeting, 
is bad. 

Student political life furnishes striking opportunities for 
becoming acquainted with men. Nearly all class and organiza- 
tion offices are elective, and the man who aspires to fill one of 
these must not only be fitted to do so, but he must have a 
wide acquaintance among his constituents. The widening of 
a candidate's acquaintance develops in him resourcefulness, 
shrewdness, and a general knowledge of human nature. It 
gives him a training in marshalling men, in planning a cam- 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 53 

paign, in meeting unexpected situations. It is one of the best 
experiences a man can have. 

All this has been to show that the four years you live at 
the University should mean something more than the mere 
acquaintance with facts, or the acquiring of information ; it 
should give you a knowledge of men. But in getting this sec- 
ond sort of training you will usually have to choose between 
several or many interests. If you elect to do one thing, you 
must usually omit the rest. A fellow may occasionally be 
president of the Young Men's Christian Association and at the 
same time captain of the football team, but ordinarily one of 
these positions is more than sufficient to occupy his leisure 
moments. If you get into the real life of the University com- 
munity and do something to direct its current, you will usually 
be better fitted to meet the unexpected in the more strenuous 
world into which you must go after college. As I said at the 
outset, for a young fellow in college, his studies are the main 
thing, but he makes a bad mistake and misses half that he 
should have gained if he neglects the "other things." 



The Freshman in College 



One can always tell a freshman at college. He may be 
as self-possessed as possible ; he may dress as he chooses ; 
he may ask no foolish questions, or show no lack of familiarity 
with the college customs ; but he is a marked man the moment 
he sets foot on the campus. Whether he comes from Chicago 
or the country town in Egypt with one general store and 
a post office, it makes little difference, he can not conceal the 
fact that he is a newcomer beginning his first experience in 
college. He is like the American in Paris, or Rotterdam, who 
thinks that if he does not speak no one will know him from 
a foreigner, but who is spotted a block away by every small 
boy, and fakir, in the street. 

No one knows how he tells a freshman — it is something 
of a matter of intuition. But the freshman learns rapidly 
to adapt himself to the new situation ; he picks up at once 
the ways of the campus ; by Thanksgiving he seems like an old 
settler, and b}^ the end of the year he is ready to meet the 
incoming freshmen with unerring recognition and conde- 
scension. Sometimes he adapts himself too incompletely to 
his new environment. It is as much a fault to cling rigidly 
to one's home manners and habits and dress as it is to 
throw these to the winds and adopt the extremes of college 
customs and fads. In the unimportant things of college life 
it is well for the freshman to keep his eyes open and to 
"do as the Romans do ;" it is not wise for him, however, 
on his return home at Thanksgiving to attempt to reproduce 
and to establish the customs of Rome in his home com- 
munity. 

The differences between high school and college are 
marked, and are revealed in other directions quite as strongly 
as in physical and social ways. The high school boy who 
is thinking of taking up a college course seldoms stops to 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 55 

consider — perhaps he ought not to be expected to know — 
that the methods of work and the ways of living are quite 
different in college from what they are in the high school. 

It is not surprising that the high school boy's idea of 
college life is an erroneous one. What he knows of college 
he has most frequently gained from the exaggerated accounts 
of student escapades which he has seen in the newspapers, 
or from the stories which he has heard related by his big 
brother or the local athlete who have returned home from 
the scenes of their scholastic triumphs. Such tales are usual- 
ly unhampered by facts, and concern themselves more with 
the unusual and unimportant things of college life than with 
the real work of the institution. If the high school bo}' has 
visited the college at all it has more than likely been at 
the time of an important athletic contest, or of an interscho- 
lastic meet, when nobody works, or talks of work, and when 
the main thing under consideration is the victor}-, and per- 
haps the celebration which follows. As he sees college, it is 
a collection of care-free \'oung fellows with little to do but 
to enjo}- themselves, and perhaps occasionalh*, if nothing 
more important prevents, to attend a few lectures. He fails 
to learn the fact that the college life is a strenuous one, 
where ever}- man has his work which must be given regular 
and serious attention. If he is to get on well in college, or 
in life for that matter, the sooner he recognizes this fact 
and adapts himself to the situation the better. Failure in 
college com.es from a failure to recognize that the aims of the 
college are different from those of the high school, that the 
amount of work required is greater, and that the methods 
of doing it must, also, be different. He must adjust him- 
self to these changed conditions if he would get on. 

The high school boy has seldom worked independently. 
The relations between him and his teacher have been closer, 
and more personal, than the}' are likeh^ at first to be in col- 
lege. He has known that if his work were not done when it 
should be, his teacher would remind him of the fact ; if it 
were not done as it should be, the oft uttered directions 
would be repeated. When he was in difficulty there was some 



56 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

one to get him out. If the translation was hard, or the theme 
subject not suggestive, or the problem in mathematics re- 
fused to be solved, someone would help. Even if his teacher 
proved indifferent, or incapable, there were father and mother, 
or older brothers and sisters, or friends to fall back upon 
as a last resort. Whatever he did, or thought, was some- 
what under the supervision of someone older or more ex- 
perienced than himself. He judged of his success, or his 
progress, by what these people said of him, or to him. 
In college it is different. There the boy must look after 
himself ; much of his training consists in his doing so. If 
he doesn't hustle, no one is likely at once to call his at- 
tention to the fact. 

The problem of living has not materially concerned the 
high school student before he comes to college. He has 
lived at home, and his comings 'and goings have been under 
the direction of the older members of the household. The 
most of his wants have been provided for without much 
thought or attention on his part. Mother has darned his 
stockings and picked out his neckties, and father has paid 
the bills. He has usually had relatively little money to spend, 
and even his companions, if they have not been directly select- 
ed by his parents, have yet come to him through his en- 
vironment quite as much as from his own deliberate choice. 
His habits are as much the result of the conventions and 
customs of the community in which he has been brought 
up as of his own tendencies or inclinations. If he learned 
to dance it was because all the fellows did ; if he went to 
church regularly, that was no necessary indication that he 
was religiously inclined; it was simply the custom. When he 
needed anything he asked for it, often without knowing much 
as to what it cost or where it came from. If his friends 
were not what they should be, or if his time were not well 
occupied, he knew very well that some one would shortly 
let him know about it. He has not yet been trained in in- 
dependence or self-reliance of action. He is in most regards 
still a child. 

At college it is different. When his study program is 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 57 

decided upon the disposal of his time is largely in his own 
hands. He may study one thing or another, or he need not 
study at all. He may read in the library, or walk down 
town, or watch the team practicing on Illinois Field ; there 
is no one to call him to account. If he attends regularly 
upon classes, and shows a reasonable intelligence regarding 
his studies, he may employ his time as he pleases. He may 
choose his own companions, and act with absolute independ- 
ence. There is a delightful freedom in all this which some- 
times deceives the young student. He may assume that since 
no one calls him to account today there will be no reckoning 
tomorrow, but in this he is mistaken. His time is his own, 
but it is his own to use wisely, and if he fails in this re- 
gard, he will suffer in the final reckoning — for there surely 
is to be one. 

Fathers and mothers often feel that this sending the 
child away from home, and putting him upon his own re- 
sponsibility, is a danger which they can not risk. They want 
constantly to watch over, guide, and direct him, so they bring 
himx to college and keep up the methods of childhood through- 
out his college career. It is an interesting fact that very few 
boys whose homes are in a college town, or whose parents 
or guardians bring them to college, and continue a more or 
less complete chaperonage over them while there, ever do 
well in their college work. A college officer was asked not 
long ago by an otherwise sensible mother who had hovered 
anxiously over her j'oung offspring during his high school 
course and for two years of his college career, why he never 
accomplished anything. The reply was that he was never al- 
lowed to do so. It was clearly a case of "too much mother." 
Sometime or other, if one is to learn to swim, he must be 
thrown into the water, and allowed to make the struggle 
alone. It is not likely to work any damage if some one is 
sufficientl}'- interested to stand by and watch the struggle, 
and if drowning is imminent, which is seldom the case, to 
extend the helping hand, but usually the swimmer learns be- 
cause he has to, as the muskrat was said to learn to climb 
a tree. Having been given preliminary training he must be 



58 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

allowed to work out his own methods ; he may go under a 
few times, and take on a little water, but he learns in the end 
to swim. 

It is equally true of the college man. He must learn 
independence, and self-reliance, and self-direction in the same 
way that young people learn to swim. One of the greatest 
sources of satisfaction to a college officer is to see how few 
suffer really disastrous results in the learning, and when these 
unfortunate results do come the trouble is quite as often at 
home as elsewhere, and would very likely have occurred 
no matter where the young student had been. 

It is quite likely that the boy at college learns for the 
first time the value of money. Very few high school boys 
know how much they cost, or have had a great deal of ex- 
perience in expending money that was spent on their support. 
If he is given a regular monthl^^ allowance, as he should be 
given, it very likely at first seems large to him; he will be a 
wise boy if he spends it with discrimination and care. The 
fellows who are m.ost regularly "broke", or hard up, are not 
the ones, usually, who have the smallest allowance. It will 
be well for the student if he is required to keep an account 
of his expenditures, or if not required to do so, if he still 
keeps this account for his own enlightenment and direction. 
The recording of his own financial indiscretions will often 
keep him from further extravagance, and induce him to think 
twice before he parts with his money. He will learn, or if 
he does not he should, that it often takes quite as much 
judgment, and even genius, to spend money wisely as to 
earn it. 

The tasks which must be accomplished in college are dif- 
ferent, both in extent and purpose from those which are ex- 
acted in high school. Perhaps nothing is so painful a surprise 
to the college freshman as that which comes to him on his 
first assignment of work. The number of problems he must 
solve, and the number of pages he must read seem appalling 
to him at first, or would seem so were it not for the fact 
that he congratulates himself that he has all the twenty-four 
hours at his disposal, and that there are eighteen weeks 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 59 

before the final examinations. He learns in time, too, that 
it is not alone in the extent of the work which he is to 
cover that the college differs from the high school, but in the 
purpose to be accomplished in this work as well. He must 
think if he is to perform his tasks readily, and his thoughts 
must be his own. He must be independent; in short, he must 
be a man. He may ask advice if he wishes ; if he gets into 
trouble there are those who will help him, but in large part 
the problems are his, and they must be solved by him, in his 
own way, and in his own time. 

The matter of a college student's associates is also a 
serious one. His friends in his home community have seldom 
been consciously chosen, except perhaps within certain pre- 
scribed limits ; they have come largely from the families of 
the friends of his father and mother. In college the case ma}^ 
be wholh' different. The majority of the people with whom 
he is most intimateh^ thrown he may very likely never have 
seen before ; their habits and their ancestors he can at first 
know at best little about. He should use caution if he is 
to choose wisely. He will be better off and safer in the 
end if he goes slowly and looks about him before he plunges 
into too fast friendships, either literally or figuratively. 

The college man's friends are most often his making 
or his undoing. He has his opportunity to choose themi con- 
sciously, and he should do this with a full knowledge of 
what his choice may mean. Good friends will lead him in 
the right direction, will help him to cultivate healthy, right 
habits, and will aid him in getting out of his college course 
the best there is in it. Ill chosen friends may easily defeat all 
the right purposes for which the young student has come to 
college. Now, as alwaj'S, a man is judged by the company 
he keeps. 

All these problems which he meets are difficult to solve. 
There is often home-sickness and discouragement, and some- 
times, unfortunately, defeat ; but in most cases the boy can 
be relied upon. He knows the hopes that are based on his 
success ; he knows the disappointment that will come if he 
fails, and he meets the situation manfully. Even the man 



6o UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

who gets the bad start will usually brace up and finish his 
course creditably. It is only in rare instances that the col- 
lege boy makes a complete failure. More and more, in these 
days, high school boys are going to college. It is a gratifying 
situation, for the college training is successful in a majority 
of cases, and turns out men; men who are self-reliant and 
resourceful; men of high ideals, who will do well the work 
which the world needs done. 



Class Attendance and Scholarship 

One of the duties of the office of Dean of Men is to su- 
pervise the class attendance of the undergraduate men of the 
University. Absences are reported daily by the class instruct- 
ors and are recorded. When the absences of any member of 
the freshman or sophomore class aggregate one-eighth of the 
whole number of semester recitations in a course, excepting 
in cases of military and physical training, such student is 
dropped from that course. A junior, when absent one-fifth 
of the total number of recitations in a course, is dropped. 
Ordinarily a student will not be allowed to overcut in a course 
without comment. When dropped, he can be reinstated only 
by getting the consent of his instructor and of the Committee 
on Attendance. If he is not reinstated, he receives a failure 
in the course at the end of the semester. No student will be 
allowed to withdraw from a course by the simple method of 
remaining away from class ; if he does this he will make him- 
self liable to discipline by the dean of his college. 

If you must be absent from class for a prolonged period, 
you should get an excuse from the office of the Dean of Men. 
Though your instructor is not permitted to excuse absence in 
any case, you may well make to him an explanation of your 
absence. If you have been sick or out of town for a good 
reason, he will probably be more likely to aid you in making 
up back work if he knows of that fact than he otherwise 
would. At the same time you must remember that absence 
from class for any reason, even for sickness, is harmful to 
your work and will be looked upon as such. You should at- 
tend every meeting of your class, if possible, and use your 
margin of cuts only for emergency cases. 

If you have been dropped from a course, you should im- 
mediately get a reinstatement permit from the office of the 
Dean of Men, and arrange with your instructor to make up 
back work or to do whatever else he may ask before he is 



62 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

willing to allow you to re-enter the course. When your in- 
structor has signed the permit, take it back to the office of 
the Dean of Men and inquire as to the probable attitude of 
the Committee on Attendance in your case. If your absences 
have been for good reasons, you will very likely be reinstated 
without much difficulty. If, however, your record has been 
bad and any of your absences inexcusable you may have more 
trouble in being allowed to continue. If, for any reason, your 
instructor refuses to allow you to re-enter, you should report 
that fact at once, also, for your position with the dean of your 
college then becomes more or less serious. It is best, first of 
all, not to cut except in the very necessary cases ; if, however, 
you have cut carelessly and made yourself liable to penalty, 
it is very wise to take the trouble up at once and straighten 
it out. 

In Military you must have 'no "absences without leave" 
on your record. If you must be absent from a drill period, 
you should notify the military office of that fact before the 
hour of drill, and at latest before Saturday noon of the week 
in which the absence occurs. If you cannot do this personally 
or by telephone, arrange with a friend to do it for you and be 
sure that he does it. The Military Department will always ac- 
cept an excuse from the office of the Dean of Men. It will 
pay 3^ou to read carefully the rules of the Military Department 
upon this and all other points, for a part of their instruction is 
in discipline, and you will suffer a penalty if you violate their 
rules. The Director of Physical Training will excuse students 
for sickness if they present an excuse from the office of the 
Dean of Men. 

As you grow older in your course you will discover that 
the temptations to cut class come more frequently and with 
apparently better reasons for doing so. As you become in- 
volved in a confusion of work to be done, you will be sorely 
tempted to stay away from one class to prepare the work for 
another, or to stay away to avoid a failure to recite. This is 
a bad policy; it can be compared to the world-old blunder of 
robbing Peter to pay Paul — a blunder committed only by peo- 
ple whose fortunes are at a low ebb. You will lose immeas- 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 63 

urably by it. It is far better to go to class, take the medicine 
of failure to recite, and reform afterward. Your increasingly 
active participation in outside interests will offer, also, many 
reasons why you might frequently cut class. Your fraternity, 
your religious work, your athletics, debating teams, or your 
attempts to earn money are some of the interests that ma}'- 
serve as seemingly good reasons why you may be irregular 
in class attendance. But even the best of these are poor ex- 
cuses. The most efficient men in college activities are usually 
those who do their classw^ork well. That man who fulfills 
all his obligations is the most valuable man to the interest 
with which he is allied. Y. M. C. A. men who flunk weaken 
their influence with other students ; fraternity men who are 
over-zealous in their fraternity work, often deprive their fra- 
ternity of their efforts by being forced to leave college ; and 
many of our best athletes betray their teams by failing to re- 
main eligible. In this respect a burden of outside activities 
is as obnoxious as indolence. It can be shown that seventy- 
five per cent of those who fail to pass in their courses have 
been careless or irregular in their class attendance. 

A real secret for success and happiness in college is 
regularity in appointments of all kinds, and not the least of 
these is the class period. 



Organizations 

FRATERNITIES 

The history of national fraternity organizations at the 
University goes back to a rather indefinite date in the fourth 
or fifth year after the founding of the Illinois Industrial Uni- 
versity. In June, 1876, the Board of Trustees first officially 
recognized the existence of a chapter of a national fraternity 
by passing a resolution which . condemned the formation of 
such societies and appealed to the students to discountenance 
their organization. Apparently this resolution was not effect- 
ive, for in 1881 a chapter of another national fraternity was 
organized among the students. Later the Faculty passed a set 
of rules providing that no student should enter the University 
until he had pledged himself not to join a fraternity, and 
that no student should graduate until he had certified that 
he had not belonged to any while in the University. In August, 
1890, the Board of Trustees passed the following resolution : 
"That the pledge heretofore required for candidates for entry 
to the University in regard to college fraternities be omitted, 
and that the subject of these fraternities be referred to the 
Committee on Rules." Since that time fraternities have been 
permitted to exist in the University with the consent and ap- 
proval of the Board of Trustees. 

At present nineteen national Greek letter social fraterni- 
ties for men are represented by chapters in the University. 
Besides these, two professional and honorary Greek letter 
fraternities and the Masonic fraternity. Acacia, exist partly 
as social organizations. In addition to the chapters of national 
fraternities there are eight local fraternities whose purposes 
and activities are quite similar to those of the national organi- 
zations. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 65 



NATIONAL FRATERNITIES 

In the order of their establishment 

Delta Tau Delta (ATA) 1872 

Sigma Chi (2X) 1881 

Kappa Sigma (K2) 1881 

Phi Kappa Sigma (*KS) 1892 

Phi Delta Theta ($Ae) 1894 

Alpha Tau Omega (ATfi) 1895 

Phi Gamma Delta (#rA) 1897 

Sigma Alpha Epsilon (2AE) 1898 

Beta Theta Pi (Ben) 1902 

Sigma Nu (2N) 1902 

Phi Kappa Psi ($K^) 1904 

Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) 1904 

Delta Upsilon (AT) 1905 

Theta Delta Chi (OAX) 1907 

Sigma Pi (SH) 1908 

Alpha Sigma Phi (A2#) 1908 

Zeta Psi (Z^) 1909 

Phi Sigma Kappa (^2K) 1910 

Psi Upsilon (^^T) 1910 

Tau Beta Pi (Engineering) (TBH) 1897 

Phi Alpha Delta (Law) ($AA) 1904 

Acacia (Masonic) 1906 

LOCAL FRATERNITIES 

Pi Theta (HG) 1903 

Tau Lambda (TA) 1906 

Chi Beta (XB) 1906 

Ilus 1907 

Triangle (Engineering) 1907 

Iris .1908 

Loyola 1909 

Ibis 1910 

Membership in these chapters varies in numbers from 
twenty-four to thirty-two. Any undergraduate in the Uni- 



66 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

versity is eligible to membership in them, but he may not 
express a willingness or desire to join until he is asked. The 
selection of new members is usually made at the beginning 
of the year and largely from the incoming freshmen. During 
this period of "rushing," as the practice is called, the various 
fraternities invite certain new students to their houses and in 
other ways pay them attentions in order that a mutual ac- 
quaintance may be formed in which both parties may deter- 
mine the desirability of a union. 

Some points which fraternity members usually consider 
in prospective members are congenialty, appearance, previous 
reputation and standing, manners and accomplishments, proba- 
bility of remaining in college four years, of becoming promi- 
nent in college activities, and of becoming a desirable alumnus 
of the chapter. Inquiry is usually made as to the social stand- 
ing of a man's family and as 'to whether or not he is inde- 
pendent in a financial way, though every chapter has a num- 
ber of members who are earning a part or all of their expenses. 
Prospect of good scholarship is universally welcomed, but, 
unfortunately, is often not insisted upon. Inasmuch as the 
fraternities are the leaders in the social life of the Uni- 
versity, a clever social behavior is desirable in a pros- 
pective member, but congenialty of a possibly rough, but at- 
tractive sort will often take the place of the other quality. 
Tendencies to boast or to be "smart," immorality, sportive 
inclinations, irresponsibility, sullenness, pessimism, and ef- 
feminacy are some of the qualities that will keep one from 
being invited to join a fraternity. As the different chapters 
vary in types and ideals so they vary in the emphasis they 
may put upon certain of these good and bad qualities. 

Some of the points which the prospective member should 
consider in making his choice of a fraternity are reputation 
and financial condition of the local chapter, national reputa- 
tion of the fraternity, congenialty of the members, their ideals 
and prospects, their scholarship, their desirability as most inti- 
mate companions for four years, and their acceptability as 
companions in all places outside of college life. The charac- 
ter of the men themselves is no doubt the most important. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 6/ 

Membership in a college fraternity is prized by college 
students in general and is usually a source of pleasure and 
help, but it is by no means essential to one's happiness, promi- 
nence, or achievement of worthy college honors. Every 
chapter exacts a great deal of attention and energy from its 
members, and you should not agree to become a member of 
such an organization unless you are sure that you will not 
only not be handicapped by such a sacrifice, but that also 3-ou 
will receive positive good from it. By joining a fraternity 
you cannot immediately leap into social and political promi- 
nence, and 3-0U will not find that 3^ou have earned an honor 
that you can keep without the necessity of the hard work, 
upright habits, forethought, and acceptance of responsibilit}-. 
You cannot be helped by joining a fraternity that has nothing 
to offer 3-0U besides the right to wear its badge. In consider- 
ing this question 5-0U will do well to consult an unprejudiced, 
well-informed adviser, for the advice that is intelligently given 
will vary with circumstances. Not all freshmen are fitted to 
be fraternit)^ men, and many freshmen would do well in one 
fraternity and be injured in another. One usually gains from 
joining a good fraternity, but the mistakes made by those who 
have pledged themselves hurriedly are far more frequent than 
those made after deliberation. No one will lose the chance 
to join a fraternity by taking sufficient time to con- 
sider his invitation. In the end, you must determine the 
course pretty largely for yourself, and you must remember 
that in so doing you are dealing with your own happiness and 
welfare for the period of your college course. 

Your fraternity house is 3-our college home, and it is 
up to 3-ou to see that it is worth3^ of the name. Fraternity 
houses are usually well governed, pleasanth'- arranged, and 
need not handicap their members in stud3^ If, however, 3'ou 
find your house not a home, but a noisy clubroom, or a board- 
ing house, ill-kept and full of hidden skeletons, you will not 
live a very happy, or beneficial college life there. The fra- 
ternity house reflects very accurately the ideals, training, and 
habits of its members, and it is in 3-our power to determine 
what these shall be. The expense of living in a fraternity 



68 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

is usually about a third more than living as a non-fraternity 
man; though in most cases it need be little more. The 
necessary expenditures are usually not much more, but the 
demands for more or less unnecessary expenditures are much 
greater. 

P'raternity men are usually not quite so good students as 
the average, though the majority of them have creditable 
records. There is usually in every chapter a small number of 
very poor students, and these bring down the averages that 
the better students may make. The following table shows 
the averages of fraternity and non-fraternity men: 

1909-1910 1910-1511 

1st. sem. 2nd sem. 1st sem. 2nd sem. 

General average , 81.11 81.31 80.31 82.42 

Fraternity men 78.92, 79.68 78.68 79.63 

There is no reason why a man may not enjoy his fra- 
ternity interests and lead his class in scholarship, but he will 
have to resist more temptations to let outside affairs interfere 
with his study than the non-fraternity man may meet. In 
a good many ways fraternity men are more easily reached 
and influenced by the Faculty than non-fraternity men, due, 
perhaps, to the fact that they are organized and to the mutual 
interest that most fraternity men take in the welfare of 
their fellow members. 

The fraternities as organizations constantly do a great 
deal toward supporting the worthy interests of the University 
and in serving to direct student activity along desirable lines. 

PROFESSIONAL AND HONORARY FRATERNITIES 

In addition to the social fraternities there are a number 
of professional and honorary fraternities represented by chap- 
ters in the University. 

The honorary fraternities are : Phi Beta Kappa (Liter- 
ary), Tau Beta Pi (Engineering), Sigma Xi (Science), Alpha 
Zeta (Agriculture), and Theta Kappa Nu (Law). Members 
of these societies are chosen in their junior and senior years 
and almost entirely upon a basis of good scholarship. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 69 

The professional fraternities are : Phi Lambda Upsilon 
(Chemical), Alpha Chi Sigma (Chemical), Eta Kappa Nu 
(Electrical Engineering), Phi Delta Phi (Law), Phi Alpha 
Delta (Law), Delta Sigma Rho (Oratorical), Delta Kappa 
Chi (Commercial), Kappa Delta Pi (Educational), Alpha 
Gamma Rho (Agricultural), Gamma Alpha (Scientific), Tri- 
angle (Civil Engineering), Scabbard and Blade (Military). 
Although these organizations differ widely in character, good 
scholarship, supposedly, is a common quality of their mem- 
bers. 

There are two honorary senior societies : Shield and 
Trident, and Phoenix, Each society elects to membership 
about twenty of the more prominent juniors at the end of the 
junior year. Besides conferring a certain distinction upon 
their members, these societies take a rather active part in 
forwarding unorganized student activities. 

THE ILLINOIS UNION 

The Illinois Union, organized in 1909, is an association of 
the men of the University for the promotion of college 
spirit and good fellowship. All men students of the Uni- 
versity are eligible to active membership upon the payment of 
the membership fee of twenty-five cents. The Student Council, 
which is composed of eight seniors and seven juniors elected 
by the members of the Union, has charge of certain student 
activities and hopes to become in time a general representa- 
tive and advisory body for the students. The Union has for 
its present primary aim the building of a clubhouse to serve as 
a general meeting place for the men students. The Union is 
gradually enlarging the scope of its activities, and member- 
ship in it is becoming more and more necessary to the stu- 
dents of the University. 

LITERARY SOCIETIES 

In the early years of the University the literary societies, 
of which there were two for men and one for women, were 



70 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

the leading social and literary organizations among the stu- 
dents. The rivalry between the two men's societies was pres- 
ent not only in literary affairs, but also in student politics and 
in social matters. The antagonism between them was always 
intense and often bitter. The control of The Illini was their 
chief bone of contention. In the year 1872-73 the two societies, 
Philomathean and Adelphic, were given the rooms in Uni- 
versity Hall that they have since continued to occupy. In 
1877 the Philomathean society engaged a lecturer from the 
outside to address the students of the University, and from 
this start the Star Lecture Course was developed. In 1905 
The Ionian society, the third men's literary society, was 
formed. In recent years, since the growth of organizations 
with a purely social nature, the literary societies have limited 
their social activity to occasional parties. 

Each society has a membership of from thirty to forty 
members ; all undergraduates who show a talent and interest 
in literary lines are eligible. The meetings are held weekly 
and consist of programs of oratorical, declamatory, musical, 
extempore, and debating numbers. Each society, usually in 
conjunction with one of the women's literary societies, pre- 
sents an annual play in the Auditorium. The Star Lecture 
Course is under the direction of the Adelphic and Philoma- 
thean societies. Rivalry among the societies is still keen, but 
it is now confined to annual inter-society debates, and ora- 
torical and declamatory contests. 

PROFESSIONAL CLUBS 

In all of the departments of the University there are a 
number of clubs which are auxiliary to the courses of study. 
These clubs hold regular meetings in which subjects of par- 
ticular interest to the members are discussed and most of them 
during the year invite to speak before them men of some 
prominence from the outside. There is also a pleasing social 
side to most of them. Every freshman should early become 
interested in one of these clubs, and make a strong effort 
to become active in its work. It is by extending one's inter- 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 7 1 

ests in this way that a general acquaintance of lasting value 
is formed. 

The following is a list of the clubs that are open to men 
students : 

Literature and Arts — 

Le Cercle Francais (French) 

El Circulo Espanol (Spanish) 

Der Deutsche Verein (German) 

The Scribblers' Club (English) 

The History Club 

The Commercial Club 

The Oratorical Association (Oratory and Debating) 

The Pen and Brush Club (Art) 

The Scandinavian Club 
Science — 

Ceramic Club 

Chemical Club 

Mathematical Club 
Engineering — 

Architects' Club 

Civil Engineers' Club 

Electrical Engineering Society 

Mechanical Engineering Society 

Physics Club 
Agriculture — 

Agricultural Club 
Law — 

Van Twiller Law Club 

Witenagemot Law Club 

John Marshall Law Club 

Fuller Law Club 
In addition to these there are local branches of a num- 
ber of general societies for the advancement of learning 
that are open to the proficient members of the upper classes. 

THE LINCOLN LEAGUE 

The Lincoln League is an organization formed by the 
students of the University in 191 1 for the study of the prin- 



"JO. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

ciples and methods of practical politics. Its membership is 
limited and elective. Its purpose is to provide mass meetings 
and gatherings open to all students to be addressed by men 
prominent in national and state politics. It is without party 
affiliations and has no purpose to take an active part in polit- 
ical movements. 



COSMOPOLITAN CLUB 

The Illinois Chapter of the Association of Cosmopolitan 
Clubs was organized in 1906. Its purpose is to bring together 
the students who come to the University from different na- 
tions. It numbers among its members almost all of the for- 
eign students of the University; in addition, about half of its 
members are Americans. It maintains a clubhouse, which is 
a centre of interest for foreign students. The activities of 
the club in presenting entertainments in which peculiar na- 
tional manners, games, and costumes are shown, are very 
interesting to the other students. The club also has an active 
interest in furthering international peace. 

THE MILITARY BAND 

The Military Band, officially a part of the University 
regiment, is one of the most popular and most efficient organi- 
zations in the University. Competition for places in it is 
very keen, and in most cases membership in it is gained only 
after repeated trials. Membership in the Band requires the 
sacrifice of much time in rehearsals, drill periods, special oc- 
casions, and concerts, but the experience and training gained 
is very valuable. Credit for Military drill is given to the 
freshman and sophomore members and remission of the tui- 
tion fees in the University to the junior and senior members. 
The instruments are furnished by the University, and the in- 
struction is under the direction of the Instructor in Band In- 
struments. Two home concerts are given each season, and a 
short concert trip is made to nearby cities. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 73 

THE GLEE AND MANDOLIN CLUBS 

The Glee and Mandolin Clubs, limited in membership to 
about forty members, are composed of students of some ability 
either in vocal or instrumental music. Membership in them 
is decided by competition early in the year. The clubs give 
two or three home concerts and make an annual concert trip 
to the larger cities of the state. About two hours a week 
regularly are spent in rehearsals, and more in the concert 
season. The instruction is given under the direction of stu- 
dent leaders under the general supervision of the Director of 
the School of Music. 

DRAMATICS 

Considerable activity is shown among the students of the 
University in amateur dramatics. During the year the literary 
societies and the classes in dramatic reading present dramas of 
one kind or another. There are two organizations devoted ex- 
clusively to dramatics — the Mask and Bauble Club and the 
Illinois Union Opera Company. The former is composed of 
both men and women students and confines its efforts to 
drama. The latter is composed exclusively of men and 
produces each year a comic opera. Places in the casts of the 
various productions are gained mainly by competition. The 
Post-exam Jubilee and the various class social gatherings 
present programs composed largely of dramatic sketches of a 
moreor less farcical nature. 



Athletics 



Many of you have been attracted to the University 
to some extent by your admiration for the Illinois ath- 
letic teams and their loyal rooters. You come here with 
an ambition to become either a member of one of the many 
teams or one of the large crowd of supporters. You want 
either to play or to yell. It is safe to say that you will not 
be disappointed with what you find, but that you will be 
somewhat surprised. You will find the conditions very dif- 
ferent from those, of your high school sports. You will not 
be able to know the players intimately, you will not be al- 
lowed to follow the game up and down the sidelines, and you 
will find yourself censured if you say too much about the 
players or the games one way or the other, A part of the 
former joy in athletics will leave you at first, and you will 
not easily recognize the larger joy and enthusiasm that is to 
take the place of the other. You will note the absence of 
many conditions that characterize sport in most places out- 
side of college; "joshing" of the players, criticism of both 
players and coaches recklessly given, applause at the mishaps 
of the opposing players, loud bragging, and "quitting" when 
the team is losing are some of the things that do not appear 
on Illinois Field. One of the things that the University tries 
to teach is the worth of fair play, and the test of this train- 
ing comes on the athletic fields. The people who are 
unfair to the opposing players, who seek undue advantage, 
and who do not value highly good sportsmanship, wherever 
they find it, are the people who cheat in examinations, play 
false with their friends, and make bad citizens when they 
leave college. The intimate friends of Director Huff know that 
he stands for this spirit of fair play solidly, and those of us 
who respect him highly can do so in no better way than by 
learning from him this principle of good sport. 

As you grow older in your course you will find that the 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 75 

interest you take in the athletic fortunes of the teams will be 
binding you closer to the University and closer to your fellow 
students. Support of the teams is one of the comparatively 
few features of the University life that appeals to all of the 
students and that brings them together on a common basis. 
The average wide awake college student finds a longing in 
himself for something to which he may be unreasonably loj^al, 
something that will arouse his fighting spirit, something that 
will make him a part of a gigantic crowd with but one ideal : 
the support of the Varsity teams is one of the things at Illinois 
that satisfies this longing. You will find that as you continue 
to favor this ideal, you will want it to be as worthy as pos- 
sible. You will not want it contaminated by poor sportsman- 
ship, by a desire to win at all odds, or by vulgarism or cheap- 
ness. You will find that you will be happiest when you have 
a feeling of confidence in the coaches and the players, and it 
will pay you to develop this confidence and trust. You will 
find yourself coming to the point where you no more think 
of boasting loudly of j^our team's victories than you would 
of your own personal triumphs. If, then, in these waj'-s, you 
make of j-our loyalty a certain reverence for good sports- 
manship and worthy competition you will be making of it 
a beneficial quality in your life. A few students are over- 
zealous in their enthusiasm in this respect and suffer harmful 
consequences, but the average student will find that a genu- 
ine interest in the athletics of the University will be of some 
marked benefit to him. 

Extensive opportunities are given to the undergraduates 
to participate in intercollegiate, inter-class, and inter-club 
games of all sorts, but especially in football and baseball. 
This interest in athletics and physical exercise is scarcely 
ever carried to excess at Illlinois, and few students are 
harmed by the attention they may give to it. On the other 
hand the benefits for the many are so great that the incoming 
freshman will be urged to follow up earnestly any interest 
he may have for athletic sports. 

Competition for places upon the various teams is very 
keen, and only the men of exceptional ability, who are willing 



76 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

to train consistently, and who can keep up with their scholar- 
ship make the regular places. The squads are always large, 
however, and few men participate in more than one branch of 
sport, so that there is an opportunity for a relatively large 
number of men to get the benefits of the training. The best 
athletes of the teams have usually been developed under the 
coaches from rather inexperienced material, and any freshman 
who has ability at all will be given a big chance to show what 
his ability may amount to. 

That participation in athletics does not interfere greatly 
with study is shown by the following table : 

1909-1910 1910-1911 

1st. sem. 2nd sem. 1st sem. 2nd sem. 

General average 81.11 81.31 80.31 82.42 

Athletes 82.74 81.78 81.56 82.23 

The man, however, who would gain a place on the teams 
must be prepared to make some strong sacrifices before he 
can realize his ambition. He must give to his training a rather 
large part of every afternoon in the season of his sport, he 
must regulate his habits to strict standards, he must do his 
scholastic work a little better than the average, and he must 
develop a personality that will make him an unselfish, trust- 
worthy teammate. There is, however, not much sweeter 
praise than that received by the successful athlete, and his 
accomplishment of his ambition will be worth as much to 
him as most of the things that he might do in college. 

The Athletic Association rewards its successful athletes 
definitely by granting them the right to wear the initial as 
a token of their attainment. The "I" is granted under the 
following conditions : 

Track — Eight points made in two intercollegiate contests 
or placing in the Conference Meet. 

Basketball — Playing in six games. 

Baseball — Pitching three or playing seven games. 

Aquatics — Eight points made in two meets, or two and 
one-half water polo games. 

Football — Playing two whole halves, in different cham- 
pionship games, and getting into one other such game. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN "J"] 

The system of coaching Illinois teams is what is called 
the "graduate coaching system" ; that is, that the coaches, as 
far as possible, shall be alumni of the Universit}-, and shall 
train the teams after the traditional standards. This plan 
has been remarkably successful not only in producing win- 
ning teams, but also in adding to the loyal spirit with which 
the teams are supported. George A. ("G") Huff, the Director 
of Athletics and baseball coach, was a student and a member 
of the mini teams in 1888-93 ; he became coach of Illinois 
athletics in 1895. He has alwa3^s had the complete confidence 
of the Illinois supporters, and he stands solidly for moral and 
intellectual standards that are worthy of admiration. Certain 
winning personal characteristics, with which the freshman 
soon becomes asquainted, add very greatly to his local reputa- 
tion. Arthur R. ("Artie") Hall, football coach, was a mem- 
ber of the mini teams in 1897-1901, and captain of the foot- 
ball team during his senior year. At some sacrifice of his 
professional interests, he returns to the University each fall to 
supervise the coaching of the football squad. He has earned 
a general reputation as a "silent" coach by reason of his 
habit of working hard and saying little. Justa M. ("Lindy") 
Lindgren played on the Illini teams in 1898-1901. He is a 
member of the staff of the State Water Survey, and lends 
his eft'orts to the coaching of the linemen of the football 
squad. Harry Gill, track coach, is not an alumnus of the 
University. He has a wide reputation for developing well 
rounded out teams from rather mediocre material. He is also 
a "silent" coach. T. E. ("Tommie") Thompson, Graduate 
Manager of Athletics and basketball coach, played on the 
Illinois basketball teams in 1908-10. The part that these 
alumni take in furnishing to the present students popular and 
clean sport can hardly be overestimated, and the loyalt\^ of 
the students to the teams is in part an acknowledgment of 
their efforts. 

Illinois intercollegiate athletics have reached the pros- 
perous point where in every line of Western Conference sports 
the Illinois team is likely to be a strong contender for the 
championship. Illinois supporters have an unusual opportuni- 



78 



UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



ty to see close contests in all of the various sports with the 
possibility that their teams will be champions in two or three 
of them. 

The baseball team went through the season of 1910 with- 
out a defeat, and with only one defeat in 191 1, winning the 
western championship in both seasons. The football team 
earned a tie for the western championship in 1910. The 
track team won the western dual meet championship in 1910 
and 191 1. The basketball team ranked fourth in 191 1. The 
water polo championship and the gymnastics championship 
came to Illinois in 191 1. 

The following are the track records made by Illinois 
men : 



EVENT 



HOLDER 



RECIORD 



100 yard dash 
200 yard dash 
440 yard dash 

880 yard dash 

1 mile run 

2 mile run 



120 yard hurdles. 

220 yard hurdles. 

High jump 

Broad jump 

Pole vault 

16 lb. shot 

16 lb. hammer 

Discus 



May, '09 

Bell,"04 

f Mills, '05 

1 Lindberg, '10. 

Herrick, '11 

Barrett, '09 

East, '10 

1 Kline, '04 

y Brown, 'OS.... 

J Lazear, '09.... 

Brown, '05 

Clark, '94 

Keator, '02 

Murphy, '12 

Burroughs, '09. 
Burroughs, '09. 
Burroughs, '09. 



9 4-5 
21 4-5 
50 4-5 

1:58 2-5 
4:36 
9:54 4-5 

16 sec. 

25 1-5 



i in. 
lU in. 



6 ft. 
22 ft. 
12 ft. 

44 ft. 7i in. 
152 ft. 2i in. 
127 ft. 9 in. 



The Athletic Association has general control of the inter- 
collegiate athletics at the University. Its ofificers, the student 

managers of the teams, three faculty mem- 
The Athletic bers and three alumni form the Athletic 

Association Board of Control, which has direct charge 

of the athletic interests. The condition of 
membership in the Athletic Association is the payment of a fee 
of two dollars, and members are entitled to rebates on admis- 
sion to the Varsity contests, and to a vote for the officers of 
the association and for the managers of the Varsity teams. 
The Athletic Association does its work well, and is actively 
engaged in providing increasingly large opportunities for 
physical exercise. It is worth while to be a member of the 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 79 

association for one usually has a sufficient interest in the 
Varsity contests to benefit by the rebates to members, and one 
usually is a friend to someone who may be seeking support 
in running for one of the offices. 

The Athletic Association has under its direction the 
management of the gymnasium, Illinois Field, the tennis 
courts south of the gymnasium, and the new playground 
which it recently purchased. The supplies for the teams and 
the equipment for the pla3-grounds are furnished by the asso- 
ciation. The holding of mass meetings, the appointment of 
yell leaders and officials at the games, and the awarding of 
University emblems to winning athletes are also part of the 
functions of the association. The election of the football 
manager occurs in the fall, but the election of the other man- 
agers and of the officers of the association occurs in the first 
week of May. Candidates for these offices must be fully ac- 
credited juniors. All active members of the association are 
entitled to vote at the elections. 

Illinois Field, the athletic field of the University, has 
belonged to the athletic interests since March, 1891. Early 

progress in improving it was slow, but in 
Illinois Field recent years it has been developed into one 

of the best athletic fields of the west. Its 
baseball diamond is the equal of the "Big League" diamonds, 
and is backed by bleachers that will seat three thousand spec- 
tators. These bleachers, commanding a pleasing view of the 
campus, form a popular meeting place in the spring after- 
noons. The football field encircled by the running track, is 
located between the baseball field and the gymnasium. Its 
bleachers will seat five thousand spectators. Three of the 
most interesting outdoor events of the year are held on the 
field in front of the bleachers — the Push Ball contest between 
the freshmen and sophomores, the Interscholastic Circus, and 
the Maypole Dance. The running track is the fastest track 
in the west ; it was the scene of the remarkable Western Con- 
ference Meet of 1910, when five Conference records were 
broken and one other tied. In the middle of Illinois Field 
is the Celebration Urn, the memorial of the class of 1910, 



8o UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

and to the west of the urn is the single, large tree which 
marks the spot of the long home runs of the Illinois baseball 
stars, particularly the home run hit with three men on bases 
by "Jake" Stahl in the Illinois-Michigan game in 1903, and 
one of "Shorty" Righter's three home runs in the Chicago 
game of 1910. The traditions of Illinois Field are the greatest 
in number and the most interesting of the student tra- 
ditions of the University. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN Si 



Religious Life 

THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 

The Young Men's Christian Association is the active 
men's religious organization of University students. The As- 
sociation occupies a fine three-story building just ofiF the cam- 
pus which contains lounging and game rooms, bowling alleys, 
and dormitories to accommodate about eighty men. There 
is also a restaurant, a lunch room, and a barber shop in the 
basement of the building. The Association holds religious 
meetings for men every Sunday afternoon, and to these as 
well as to the building all new men are welcomed. Courses 
in Bible study are given. 

The Association is most helpful to new students. Lists 
of rooms and boarding places are posted, members of the As- 
sociation meet all trains, assist students in finding satisfac- 
tory locations, and endeavor to make them feel at home. A 
regularly conducted employment bureau has been of immense 
service in helping students to find work. 

The Young Women's Christian Association performs 
similar service for the young women of the University. 

THE CHURCHES 

The local churches in Champaign and Urbana make every- 
effort to attract students, to engage them in the various forms 
of church work, and to give them a hearty welcome. Certain 
churches near the campus such as the Trinity Methodist 
Episcopal church, the Unitarian church, and the University 
Place Christian church are looked upon especially as "stu- 
dent" churches and here the students attend in large numbers. 
Other Protestant denominations as the Episcopalians and 
Presbyterians employ "student pastors" who give their entire 
time to calling upon students, making their acquaintance, and 
interesting them in religious work. A Presbyterian student 



82 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

church is in process of erection the services in which will be 
entirely for students. 

Other religious denominations support organizations. 
The Loyola club is an organization of Roman Catholic stu- 
dents. Gregory Guild is made up of Baptist students, and the 
Episcopalian students support a chapter of the Brotherhood 
of Saint Andrew. Ivrim is made up of Jewish students. The 
Presbyterian and the Episcopalian churches also each conducts 
a dormitory for young women. 



Publications 



THE ILLINI 

The Illini, the college daily newspaper, is edited and 
managed by students. The first publication by the students 
of the University appeared in November, 1871, and was 
called the Student. It was published once a month. Two 
years later the name was changed to the Illini, and shortly the 
publication appeared twice a month. As the number of 
students increased, and as student interests multiplied the 
time of publication became more frequent. From 1894 to 1899 
it was published weekly; from 1899 to 1902 it appeared three 
times a week, and since 1902 it has been conducted as a daily 
with six issues a week. 

The editor, business-manager, and bookkeeper of the 
Illini are now chosen by a Board of Trustees composed of 
three members of the Faculty appointed by the Council of 
Administration, and three students — two juniors and one 
senior — elected by the paid-up subscribers to the paper. Can- 
didates for appointment to office on the Illini staflf must 
when they enter upon the duties of their office be seniors 
in full standing and must previously have maintained an 
average class standing of not less than eighty per cent. 

The other members of the editorial and business staff 
are appointed by the editor and the business manager with 
the approval of the Board of Trustees. The profits which 
accrue from the publication of the Illini, with the exception 
of a small percentage which is set aside for equipment and 
as a contingent fund, are divided in an agreed-upon propor- 
tion among the men composing the editorial and business 
staffs of the paper. 

Leaving out of consideration the financial remuneration 
which each student receives, the benefits to be derived from 
a business or an editorial connection with the paper are great. 

The Illini is published on every day of the week except- 
ing Monday. The subscription price is $2.50 a year. 



84 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

THE ILLIO 

The Illio, the University year book, is published by the 
junior class and is issued near the close of the college year. 

The first year book was issued in 1882 by the sophomore 
class under the title of the Sophograph, and continued to 
appear annually for the next eleven years. The class of 1895 
did not issue an annual in its sophomore year, but waited 
until the junior year bringing out a year book under the 
name of the Illio, by which title the year book still is 
known. 

The editor-in-chief and the business manager of the 
Illio are elected by direct vote of the members of the sopho- 
more class at a time soon after the beginning of the second 
semester*. The contest is usually a spirited one which brings 
out a large number of the members of the class. Candidates 
must at the time of their election be in full sophomore 
standing, and must have carried their class work with an 
average of not less than eighty per cent. During their term 
of office they must carry enough work to give them full 
senior standing at the end of the year. 

The other members of the editorial and business staff 
are appointed by the editor-in-chief. The principal positions 
are much sought after not only because of the experience 
which they furnish, but because of the profits which go large- 
ly to the two main officers. The positions are exacting in 
their demands and difficult to fill; they should not be sought 
except by superior students ahead of their course. 

The Illio sells for $1.75. 

THE ILLINOIS MAGAZINE 
The Illinois Magazine, the only strictly literary under- 
graduate publication, appeared first in 1902 under the patron- 
age of the English Club. Since that time it has had an ir- 
regular existence. At various times it has suspended pub- 
lication for want of financial support, and for some two or 
three years it was the particular protege of the Scribbler's 
Club, an organization of undergraduates interested in writ- 
ing. During recent years the magazine has had a somewhat 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 85 

independent existence and has been a very creditable pub- 
lication. " The editor and the business manager must be mem- 
bers of either the junior or the senior class, and must have 
an average class standing of not less than eighty per cent. 
The subscription price of the Illinois Magazine is $1.00 
for the year. 

THE AGRICULTURIST 

The Illinois Agriculturist is a monthly magazine pub- 
lished by the Agricultural Club. It has been issued for the 
past fifteen years. The editor and business manager may be 
members of the junior class, but in point of fact they are reg- 
ularly chosen at the end of the junior year. All members 
of the agricultural club are entitled to vote. Only students 
who have attained an average class standing of not less than 
eighty per cent, are eligible for office. The other members 
of the editorial and business staff are appointed by the 
editor and business manager. Juniors who have served cred- 
itably on the staff for a year are most likely to secure the 
principal positions for the senior year. 

The subscription price of the Illinois Agriculturist for 
students is fifty cents a year. 

THE TECHNOGRAPH 

The Technograph, the technical journal of the College 
of Engineering, has been published for the past twenty-four 
years. Until 1910-1911 but one issue a year was attempted, 
but at this time a reorganization was made with the intention 
of publishing the Technograph quarterly. 

The Technograph is managed by a board consisting of 
one junior and one senior elected from each of the following 
societies : the Architects' Club, the Civil Engineers' Club, 
the Electrical Engineering Society, the Mechanical Engineer- 
ing Society, the Mining Engineering Society, and the Chem- 
ical Club. This board elects three members from the en- 
gineering student body at large, all these elections occurring 
before the last Monday in March. The student board elects 
a president, a vice-president, and a secretary. It is also the 



86 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

business of the board to elect an editor-in-chief, a business 
manager, and an assistant business manager who shall be 
the treasurer. Ninety-five per cent, of the profits, if there 
should be any, go to these three, the remaining five per cent, 
being kept for a contingent fund. The officers of the pub- 
lication must have attained an average scholastic standing of 
not less than eighty-five per cent, during the year preceding 
their election. 

An additional advisory board of five, consisting of two 
members of the Engineering Faculty, the Dean of the Col- 
lege of Engineering, and two alumni are a part of the 
organization. 

The magazine is issued quarterly on October 15, January 
15, March 15, and May 15, the subscription price being $1.00 
a year. 

STUDENTS' DIRECTORY 

A student and faculty directory is published each year 
about the first of November by two students, usually members 
of the senior class, selected by the Dean of Men. This direct- 
ory contains the local addresses of all members of the faculty 
and of all students. In addition the college course, year, and 
home address of each student is given. Students when 
registering should be careful to give their local addresses 
correctly, and if they change them during the year they 
should report the change at once to the office of the 
Registrar or of the Dean of Men. 

This directory is distributed free of charge by the local 
business firms whose advertisements appear in it, and is 
most valuable to any one connected with the University. 



Class Organization 



The first meeting of the men of the freshmen class oc- 
curs in the Auditorium on Wednesday afternoon following 
registration, at four o'clock. The President of the University 
and the Dean of Men make short addresses at this time which 
every man will be helped by hearing. 

The first meeting for class organization is held usually 
in the Chapel of University Hall about the first week in 
October. Permission to use this room must be secured from 
the Assistant Dean of the College of Literature and Arts, 
who is the custodian of the building. The meeting is called 
by the Dean of Men at the request of members of the class, 
and he acts as presiding officer until temporary class officers — 
a chairman and a secretary — are elected. The business of this 
first meeting is completed when the following committees have 
been appointed by the chairman : 

a. Committee on constitution. 

b. Committee on color rush. 

c. Committee on class colors. 

The class constitution should be carefully considered 
because it is the body of regulations under which a class 

must work during the four years of un- 
Class dergraduate life. The conditions of class 

Constitution membership should be exactly stated, the 

control of class finances should be consid- 
ered, and the time of elections and the regulations concerning 
the eligibility of canditates for class officers should be exact- 
ly defined. An illustration of a class constitution is given 
below. A second meeting of the class is called by the tem- 
porary chairman whenever the committee on class constitu- 
tion is ready to report. 



8S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



CONSTITUTION OF THE CLASS OF 1912 

OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

ARTICLE I NAME 

The name of this organization shall be the Class of 1912. 

ARTICLE II. OFFICERS 

Section 1. The officers of this organization shall consist of a 
president, a vice-president, a secretary, a treasurer, and a sergeant- 
at-arms. 

Section 2. Elections shall be held some time during the second 
week of each seniester. Notice of the election must be posted by order 
of the president, three days in advance, in five prominent places, and 
published in the Illini. Announcements shall state time, place, and 
manner of election. 

Section 3. When an office is vacant for any reason, the highest 
remaining officer shall declare the office vacant and order an election 
to fill the vacancy. 

Section 4. The president shall preside at all meetings of the class, 
shall enforce an observance of this Constitution and By-Laws, and 
shall appoint committees not otherwise provided for. 

Section 5. In the absence of the president, the vice-president 
shall perform all the duties of the president. 

Section 6. The secretary shall keep a record of all meetings and 
shall issue notice of all special meetings. 

Section 7. The duties of the treasurer shall be to receive and 
have charge of all money belonging to the organization, to deposit this 
in an approved bank of Champaign or Urbana unless otherwise directed; 
and in the name of the organization to pay all bills by cheque signed 
by himself. At the last regular meeting of each semester the outgoing 
treasurer shall submit a complete report of all receipts and expendi- 
tures of his term. This report must have been approved by the Audit- 
ing Committee of the University of Illinois before being submitted to the 
class, and must be signed by the chairman of that committee. At the 
first regular meeting of each semester the incoming treasurer must 
report all liabilities and funds received by him from his predecessor. 

Section 8. The sergeant-at-arms shall act as doorkeeper, distribute 
blanks, shall have charge of the tellers of elections, and shall, with the 
assistance of such deputies as he shall appoint, preserve order at all 
meetings and elections. 

Section 9. An officer may resign upon presenting good reasons in 
writing, and receiving permission from a majority of the members 
voting at any meeting. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 89 

ARTICLE III. MEMBERSHIP 

Section 1. No individual may be a member of the Class of 1912 
who votes in any other class during the current semester. 

Section 2, To remain a member of the Class of 1912 students 
must maintain the following standing: 

Freshman Year. — At the beginning of the second semester, fifteen 
semester hours' credit. 

Sophomore Year. — At the beginning of the first semester, thirty 
semester hours' credit. At the beginning of the second semester, forty- 
five semester hours* credit. 

Junior Year. — At the beginning of the first semester, sixty hours* 
credit. At the beginning of the second semester, seventy-five hours' 
credit. 

Senior Year. — At the beginning of the first semester, ninety hours* 
credit. At the beginning of the second semester, one hundred and 
five hours' credit. 

article IV. — insignia 
Section 1. The colors of this class shall be purple and champagne. 

article v. — CLASS DUES 

Section 1. The regular semester dues shall be twenty-five cents, 
payable before any member may be allowed to vote. 

Section 2. Assessments may be levied by the consent of the ma- 
jority of members at any meeting. 

article VI. — amendments 

Section 1. Amendments to this Constitution or these By-Laws may 
be made by a vote of three-fourths of all members present at any 
meeting. 

Section 2. Every amendment must have been discussed at a pre- 
vious meeting before it is voted upon. 

BY-LAWS 

ARTICLE I 

Regular meetings must be held at least two weeks before each 
election. 

ARTICLE II 

A quorum shall consist of twenty-five members. 

ARTICLE III 

The order of business shall be as follows: 

1. Minutes of previous meeting. 

2. Reports of committees. 

3. Report of treasurer. 

4. General business. 

a. Old or unfinished business. 

b. New business. 



90 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



ARTICLE IV 

Section 1. Nominations for officers may be made in open meeting 
or by general notice, but all nominations must be in the hands of the 
secretary one week before the election. 

To become a nominee, an individual must have the signatures of 
fifteen members of the class indorsing his nomination. 

Section 2. Tellers for the first semester election of freshman year 
shall be appointed as follows: One teller by temporary chairman; one 
teller by each presidential candidate. 

Section 3. Tellers for each succeeding election shall be appointed 
as follows: One by each outgoing president of the Class; one by each 
of the presidential nominees. 

Section 4. Nominations must be approved by the Dean of Men, 
subject to the provision of the Constitution, Article III. 

article V 

Section 1. Semester electiens must be by means of printed 
ballots prepared by the president and secretary of the Class. Upon 
the ballots shall appear the names of all the candidates who have 
filled their nomination petitions as herein before provided. 

Section 2. A plurality of all the votes cast for each office at an 
election is necessary for the election of a nominee to that office. 



For fifteen or twenty years it has been the custom for 
the freshmen and sophomore classes, early in the fall, to hold 
a class contest. In recent years this has 
The Push taken the form of a push ball contest on 

Ball Contest Illinois Field under the direction of mem- 

bers of the Students' Union. Hundreds of 
under classmen take part in this contest. 

The choosing of class colors is in itself a small matter. 
It will, however, be the source of considerable annoyance 

later in the life of the class if these colors 
Class are inharmonious or crude. The colors are 

Colors seen in the sweaters of the class teams, 

and they are combined in the junior cap 
and in the senior hat They should, therefore, be pleasing 
and dark enough to stand the hard constant strain of every- 
day wear. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 9 1 

For years freshmen have been recognized on the Campus 
by the small green "postage stamp" cap which they wear. 

Fraternities and other organizations re- 
The quire their freshmen to wear these caps. 

Green Cap The custom is a good one which all 

freshmen should follow ; it helps to dif- 
ferentiate classes, it aid the freshmen themselves in rec- 



ognizing their classmates, and it gives a certain picturesque- 
ness to the crowds of students as they pass back and forth 
between buildings. 

Students in the different colleges are distinguished by 
the colored button on the cap, white indicating the college 
of Literature and Arts, yellow Science or Agriculture, and 
red Engineering. During the winter months a green 
knitted toque is worn with similarly colored buttons. 

The political interest in the freshman class organization 
is relatively slight. The University traditions are against 

the freshman's going into social and polit- 
Class ical matters. It is not until the first sem- 

Elections ester of the sophomore year that any keen 

interest is shown in class elections. The 
president of the sophomore class for the first semester of the 
year leads the grand march at the Sophomore Cotillion 
which occurs on the last Friday night of the first semester. 
He also appoints the committee which has charge of this 
function. 

Interest is also shown in the election of officers of the 
sophomore class for the second semester, because at this 
time the managers of the class annual for the junior year 
are chosen, and although the class officers have no power in 
the appointing of these men, yet their influence usually 
counts for a good deal, and it is generally thought worth 
while at this time to be in political authority. The presi- 
dent for the second semester also appoints the committees 



92 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

in charge of the Sophomore Stag and the Sophomore Em- 
blem. 

The presidency of the junior class for the first semester 
is much sought after on account of the fact that the president 
leads the Junior Prom and appoints the Committee which 
has it in charge. The Prom is scheduled for the second 
Friday night in December and is one of the leading college 
social functions of the year. The committees in charge of the 
Junior Smoker and the Junior Cap are also appointed by the 
president of the class the first semester. The president for 
the second semester has recently had the appointment of the 
Senior Memorial Committee and the Senior Hat Com- 
mittee. The latter committee is appointed in the spring of the 
junior year so that the hats may be ready for use early in 
the fall. 

The senior class has no social events during the first sem- 
ester with the exception of the Class Smoker the committee in 
charge of which the president appoints. The presidency for 
the second semester, however, is considered an honor worth 
striving for. This officer presides at the Class Day exercises, 
and leads the Senior Ball. He has also the privilege of ap- 
pointing some very important committees. These include 
the Senior Ball Committee, the Stag Committee, and the 
committees on Invitations, Caps and Gowns, Senior Break- 
fast, Class Day, and Class Finance. The number of members 
on these committees varies from three to fifteen. 



Calendar 

The University opens on the Wednesday nearest the 
twentieth of September. Registration days are the two days 
previous to the day of opening. New 
Registration students who have not registered during 

the summer should obtain permits from 
the registrar's office and should take these to the office 
of the dean of the college in which they wish to 
register. Directions as to how to proceed will be given 
them there. Old students (men) who were not registered 
in the University the previous semester should obtain a 
permit from the office of the Dean of Men. Students reg- 
istered the previous semester should go directly to the office 
of the dean of their resepective colleges. Men who do not 
register upon the regular registration days must obtain a 
permit from the office of the Dean of Men and pay at the 
business office a fee of one dollar for late registration. All 
fees are paid at the time of registration. 

A convocation of the men of the freshman class is held 

in the Auditorium at four o'clock 
Freshman Convocation on the first day (Wednesday) of 

the semester. 
Foot ball practice begins by Conference rule on Sep- 
tember 20. Freshmen wish- 
Foot Ball Practice ing to try out for their team 

should see the freshman coach on 
Illinois Field. 

A reception to men is given by the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association on the second 
Y. M. C. A. Reception Friday night of the semester. 

All new men are welcomed. Re- 
freshments are served and an opportunity furnished to get 
acquainted. 



94 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

The annual push ball contest between the freshman and 

sophomore classes takes place as 

Push Ball Contest early in October as the organiza- 

tion of the freshman class will 

permit. 

A report on the scholastic standing of all freshmen and 
special students and on all other students whose work is 
below 80 per cent, is made on the fourth 
First Report Friday in October to the dean of the col- 

On Scholarship lege in which the student is registered. 
Men may find out their standing in a gen- 
eral way by calling a few days later than the date of the 
reports at the office of the Dean of Men. 

Students who are reported as doing poor work in more 
than one subject are called to the office of the dean of their 
college for conference. 

The Fall Handicap is an annual event occurring in No- 
vember for track athletes repre- 

Fall Handicap senting the various classes and 

handicapped on the basis of their 

previous records. Medals are given to the winners of places. 

This meet is the first try-out for prospective candidates for 

the Varsity Track squad. 

On the day of the most important foot ball game on 

Illinois Field a Home Coming 

Home Coming celebration occurs. Hundreds of 

old students visit the University, 

special meetings and demonstrations are held, and there is a 

general reunion of all college organizations. 

The Thanksgiving recess begins on Wednesday noon 
previous to Thanksgiving day and ends on the Monday noon 

following. Students may not without per- 
Thanksgiving mission absent themselves from classes 
Recess either immediately before or immediately 

following a vacation on penalty of being 
excluded from final examinations in such subjects as they cut. 
Students who find it necessary to extend their vacation may 
present a petition to the Committee on Student Progerss ten 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 95 

days before the beginning of the vacation. Men may leave 
these petitions at the office of the Dean of Men and women 
with the Dean of Women. 

T ■ r Pr m ^^^ Junior Prom is set for the 

second Friday night in December. 

A second report on scholarship is made to the college 

office on the second Friday in De- 
Second Report on cember. Students who have been 
Scholarship reported for poor work both in 

October and in December are 
notified and their parents written the facts. 

The Christmas Concert by the Choral Society is given 

on the Tuesday evening of the 
Christmas Concert week previous to the beginning 

of the Christmas recess. 

A Christmas recess of approximately two weeks is given, 

the exact dates of which are an- 
Christmas Recess nounced in the University Cata- 

log. Students may not extend 
this vacation without permission of the Committee on Stu- 
dent Progress. 

Final examinations for the first semester begin on the 
last Thursday in January and continue for eight days. Most 
examinations are held in the forenoons 
Examinations from eight to eleven. Examinations in first 
hour subjects (8:00 to 9:00 o'clock) occur 
on the first day of the examination period, in second hour 
subjects, on the second day of the period, and so on. Students 
with conflicts must arrange these with the vice-president be- 
fore the time scheduled for the examination. The afternoons 
of examination days are occupied with the examinations in 
subjects the work of which is given in sections. 

The Sophomore Cotillion occurs on the Friday night of 

the first semester following exam- 
Sophomore Cotillion inations. 



g6 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

Registration for the second semester occurs on the M,on- 

day and Tuesday following the 
Registration close of the first semester. Men 

who do not complete their regis- 
tration on these days must obtain a permit from the Dean 
of Men and pay a special fee of one dollar. 

A "stunt" program, called the Post-Exam Jubilee, in the 

auditorium is presented under the 

Post-Exam Jubilee management of the Young Men's 

Christian Association, on the first 

Tuesday evening, of the second semester. 

The Military Ball is given on the Friday night of the 

week in which Washington's 
Military Ball birthday occurs. 

The annual Military Band Concert occurs on the evening 

of -the first Saturday in March. 
Band Concert 

Reports on scholarship for the second semester are made 

on the third Friday in March. But 
Spring Report on one report is made during the 

Scholarship second semester. 

The Easter recess begins on Thursday at twelve o'clock 

previous to Easter Sunday and 
Easter Recess ends on Tuesday noon following 

Easter Sunday. Students may 
not extend this vacation without special permission of the 
Committee on Student Progress. 

The May Festival, under the direction of the University 

Choral Society, comes on the Mon- 
May Festival day, Tuesday, and Wednesday 

nearest the middle of May 

Interscholastic week occurs on the week in May following 

the May Festival. The exercises 
Interscholastic Week of this week include the May 

Pole Dance on Illinois Field, the 
Stunt Show, the Circus, and the athletic events of the Inter- 
scholastic meet. 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 97 

Between the fifteenth and the thirty-first of May are 
scheduled the military events of the j^ear, including Military 
Day, the Hazelton prize drill, the annual 
Military military inspection, and the companj- corn- 

Events petitive drill. An extra penalty- is imposed 

upon the cadet who fails to be present at 
the last two events mentioned. 

The "Welcome to Spring" occurs without announce- 
ment on the first pleasant even- 
Spring Celebration ing in early April. 

Examinations for the second semester begin on the 
Thursday nearest the first of June and continue eight days. 
Examinations are usually given in inverse 
Examinations order, eighth hour subjects having their 
examination set for the first morning of 
the examination period, seventh hour subjects for the second 
morning, and so on. The afternoons are occupied with the 
examinations in subjects the work of which has been pre- 
sented in sections. 

Commencement occurs on the week following the ex- 
aminations for the second semester. The events begin 
with a promenade concert given by the 
Commencement Military Band in the Armory on the Sat- 
urday evening of the week in which ex- 
aminations are ended. 

On the Sunday afternoon following the band concert, 
occurs the Baccalaureate address in the Auditorium. Mon- 
day is occupied with the Class Daj- program^ and the Senior 
Ball in the Armory, Tuesday is Alumni Day, and Wednes- 
daj'' is given over to the exercises of Commencement. 

The Summer Session open on the second Monday fol- 
lowing Commencement week and 
Summer Session continues eight weeks. 



Miscellaneous Information 

RULES FOR UNDERGRADUATES 

The rules governing the conduct and management of un- 
dergraduate students are published by the University and 
may be had at the time of registration or by asking for a 
copy at any of the University oiffices. Students will do well 
to familiarize themselves with these rules. 

MILITARY DRILL 

The University being one of the "Land Grant" colleges 
is required to give regular instruction in Military Science. 
All able bodied male students under twenty-five years of age 
and citizens of the United States must take military drill 
twice a week during their freshman and sophomore years. 
The instruction is under the charge of an officer of the Unit- 
ed States army. 

During the early history of the University students were 
required to drill during their entire connection with the in- 
stitution, from the time they entered the academy until the 
end of the senior year. In 1880 seniors were excused from 
the drill requirements, and in 1891 "preps" and juniors were 
included among those excused. The University cadet regi- 
ment is now the largest in the country, and has been brought 
to a very high degree of efficiency. 

A uniform of cadet grey is worn, but students not feel- 
ing able to buy a new uniform will find opportunity to pick 
up second hand uniforms in good condition. These must be 
approved by the military office before they can be received, 
and it is usually well for the new student not to pay too 
generous a price. 

The non-commissioned officers of the regiment are select- 
ed from the sophomore class, lieutenants from the junior 
class, and the field officers and captains from the senior class 



FACTS FOR FRESHMEN 99 

and the graduate school. There are about seventy commis- 
sioned officers in the regiment. 

The regiment is a source of much pride to the members 
and friends of the University. Its size, its martial appear- 
ance, and its efficiency make it an important feature of many 
of the University ceremonies. As it marches down Burrill 
Avenue, or as it stands in review on the drill ground, flanked 
on one side by the Military Band and on the other by the 
Signal Corps and the Battery Corps, it never fails to impress 
strongly upon the onlookers its deep significance. The Fed- 
eral government has inspected it by visits of its leading 
active and retired army officers. President Taft, Generals 
Miles, Grant, and Carter each on various occasions has re- 
viewed it. The generous commendations of these officials 
has swelled our pride often amost to the bursting point, 
of the University by providing liberally for its upkeep, by 
The State government recognizes it as an important feature 
summoning it to take part in inaugural parades in Spring- 
field, and by conferring upon its graduating commissioned 
officers brevet commissions in the National Guard of the 
State. 

PHYSICAL TRAINING 

Phj'sical Training is a required course for all freshmen. 
Students, however, who are physically unable to take the 
course may be excused by presenting a petition at the time 
of registration. Men also who are doing manual labor to 
help earn their living, or who have other legitimate excuses, 
may be excused from the course by presenting a petition in 
person at the office of the Dean of Men. Blank forms for 
these petitions may be obtained from any of the executive 
offices. 

Lectures on personal hygiene are given once a week for 
the first six weeks of the first semester commencing on the 
week following registration. These lectures occur on the first 
day of the two days of the week on which Physical Training 
is scheduled. That is if Physical Training is scheduled on 
the study program for Tuesday and Thursday, the lectures 



100 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

will occur on Tuesday. The gymnasium exercises do not 
begin until after the lectures on hygiene have ended. Stu- 
dents who on account of illness or other reason are unable 
to attend work in Physical Training should get an excuse 
from the office of the Dean of Men. 

MEDICAL ADVICE 

Everyone at some time during his college course is likely 
to need medical advice. There are in Champaign and Urbana 
and about the University a number of excellent physicians 
and others not so good. Students should not engage a phy- 
sician without asking the advice of some one who has been 
in the community long enough to give intelligent advice. This 
will ordinarily not be another student. 

THE HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION 

The Hospital Asrsociation, organized in 1899, is to pro- 
vide a fund to furnish hospital care for students in case of 
illness. Each member pays a fee of one dollar a semester 
and the sum thus raised is used to pay the hospital expenses 
of such members as fall ill. The fee may be paid each 
semester to the business office when the student pays his 
semester fees, or it may be paid by men at the office of the 
Dean of Men or of the Dean of the College of Engineering. 
You can not spend a dollar more wisely than to join this 
Association since it insures excellent care and more rapid re- 
covery in case of illness. 

The funds of the Association are managed by a com- 
mittee consisting of the Dean of Men, the Dean of Women, 
and the Assistant Dean of the College of Engineering. 

INTERMISSIONS 

An intermission of ten minutes is allowed between rec- 
itation hours in which students are to get from one building 
or from one class to another. Many instructors mark stu- 
dents absent who are not in the class room by the time the 
second class bell rings. Students who are unavoidably late 
will do well to speak to the instructor at the close of the 
class period to avoid being marked absent. 



OCT S i9iS 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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